Weber’s clarinet (and horn and bassoon) concertos seem to have joined the ‘waiting for a London bus’ analogy this year. Here is another contrasting pair of discs, arranged not dissimilarly to those featuring soloists Steffens, Collins and Stirling reviewed in February. Once again the German approach – Martin Spangenberg as both soloist and conducting the youthful Orchestra M18 – presents a darker, more chamber-like approach than Linn’s more playful, self-consciously virtuoso SCO interpretations under Alexander Janiczek.

Pushed to a choice, I especially enjoyed Alec Frank-Gemmill’s cheeky handling of the runs and decorations in the Horn Concertino, and Spangenberg’s and (from the previous release) Karl-Heinz Steffens’s moody style in the three clarinet concertos. Spangenberg’s communication with the players is never in doubt; he is also recorded slightly further forward, but this is more of a soloist balance, more 1960s Decca stereo than original-instrument informed equality. The inclusion of the two overtures provides an apt context for Weber’s dramatic thinking behind the Clarinet Concertos – the E flat major Second more a fellow of Oberon, the F minor First of the wilder The Ruler of the Spirits. Spangenberg secures scorching performances here, his conductorship far more than honorary.

All four of these discs of Weber’s wind music are supportively recorded, all of them revelling in the joy of what is made to feel like a larger scale of chamber music. More important is the chance to enjoy music which, in this country at least, is still known better to practising musicians than to their audiences.