No sooner had I finished Peter Donohoe’s latest concerto disc above than this second volume in Naxos’s Alwyn series arrived. Repertoire-wise, it’s an even more rewarding prospect, all three works showing the composer at the height of his powers.

The Second Symphony (1953) was Alwyn’s own favourite of his five. Economically argued and cast in two parts, it’s a stirring, heartfelt creation, full of striking invention and resplendently scored (a former principal flautist with the LSO, Alwyn knew the workings of the orchestra inside out). Impressive, too, is the Fifth from 1973 (dedicated ‘to the immortal memory of Sir Thomas Browne’, from whose 1658 elegiac discourse Hydriotaphia the work derives its inspiration), a tightly organised single-movement essay of considerable emotional impact and touching sincerity. The composer’s own pioneering recordings with the LPO from the 1970s were in many respects superseded by Hickox’s sumptuous LSO accounts. Lloyd-Jones provides a tauter, more convincingly paced view than either but the RLPO, enthusiastically though they respond, can’t quite match the LSO in terms of tonal sheen.

Sandwiched between the symphonies comes Lyra angelica, the ravishing concerto for harp and string orchestra that Alwyn penned in 1953-54. Inspired by lines from Christ’s Victorie and Triumph (1610) by the English metaphysical poet Giles Fletcher, it’s a work of unbounded lyrical beauty and leaves just as indelibly rapt an impression here as it does on both comparative rival versions. The immaculate soloist, Suzanne Willison, is placed well forward in the sound picture without any undue masking of detail. In the symphonies, on the other hand, one notes that the orchestral balance is neither as effortlessly natural nor helpfully transparent as that struck by the Lyrita engineers three decades earlier – and the distant toot of a car horn breaks the spell after the diminuendo a niente conclusion of No 2’s first half. Small niggles but not enough to withhold a solid recommendation.