Cast in four linked movements and held together by a motto theme which also appears in the 1917 tone-poem November Woods, Bax’s storm-tossed Second Violin Sonata was conceived during the summer of 1915 at a time of great personal upheaval for the 31-year-old composer and comprehensively overhauled six years later. Be it in the seductive sway of the second movement (a ghostly waltz enigmatically entitled “The Grey Dancer in the Twilight”) or hair-raising final climax prior to the ecstatically serene epilogue, these dashingly poised newcomers give of their considerable best, with CBSO leader Laurence Jackson formidably secure in the solo part’s more scarily vertiginous exploits. On reflection, Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe do evince the greater familiarity, affection and tender compassion in their admirable 1999 account (GMN, 3/01 – nla – and I prefer the more rounded tone, as recorded, of Little’s 1757 Guadagnini), but no one coming to this music for the first time will be left unstirred by its piercing beauty, urgency of expression and vaulting ambition.

In any case, what lifts this collection into the indispensable category are the spellbinding performances (all far more arresting than those by Robert Gibbs and Mary Mei-Loc Wu on ASV, 8/01 and 6/02) of the darkly smouldering Legend and Ballad from 1915 and 1916 respectively, as well as the Allegro appassionato in G minor (a likeable student effort from 1901) and unpublished F major Sonata of 1928 (which Bax subsequently recast as his captivating Nonet). The Potton Hall sound in these last four items (emanating from sessions a year after those for the Second Sonata) is particularly handsome and true, and the disc as a whole represents yet another “must have” within this extensive series.