William Alwyn planned his first four symphonies as a unified cycle, so the Fourth (completed in 1959 and premiered by Barbirolli and the Hallé during that year’s Proms season) can be viewed both as the final destination in a deeply personal 11-year odyssey as well as a powerful summing up of Alwyn’s symphonic achievement to that date. Masterfully scored and lucidly argued, it’s cast in three movements, the passacaglia-like finale movingly recalling and developing material from earlier in the work as well as from the First Symphony.

Interpretatively, the pattern is the same as before in that David Lloyd-Jones is far less inclined to linger, profitably paying heed to Alwyn’s qualifying con moto markings in the outer sections of the first movement and bittersweet meno mosso interlude at the heart of the work’s substantial central Scherzo. At the same time there’s no feeling of undue haste nor any want of romantic fervour. The orchestral playing, too, is wholly admirable, full of vitality and, where required, infectious rhythmic snap (try the Holstian outer portions of the Scherzo). Mike Clements’s sound is, on the whole, very fine although, as on both previous instalments, the balance isn’t (to my ears, at any rate) as felicitously integrated as that achieved by the Lyrita engineers three decades earlier; nor can the RLPO match Hickox’s LSO for lustrous spectacle. But in terms of muscular drive and satisfying logic Lloyd-Jones must now take the prize.

The coupling is Alwyn’s rewarding Sinfonietta for strings, completed in February 1970 for the San Francisco Symphony to perform on tour in Britain. In the event that visit was cancelled and the work was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival by the ECO. The score bears a dedication to the musicologist Mosco Carner, with whom the composer shared an enthusiasm for the music of Alban Berg (hence the discreet quotation from Lulu in the rapt central Adagio). The Merseyside strings tuck into Alwyn’s deft writing with relish, and once again Lloyd-Jones adopts a more linear, less heart-on-sleeve approach than do either of his rivals (notably so in the last movement). A compelling conclusion to another notable survey from Naxos and confidently recommended.