I vividly recall being bowled over by my first encounter with Lennox Berkeley’s eloquent Horn Trio through David Pyatt’s superlative account with Levon Chilingirian and Peter Donohoe (Erato, 12/00). This no less dashingly articulate newcomer makes just as strong a case for a mightily rewarding work that was commissioned by pianist Colin Horsley, who joined forces with the legendary horn player Dennis Brain and violinist Manoug Parikian for both the first performance (on March 28, 1954, at the Victoria and Albert Museum) and pioneering recording (over two days in June 1954 at Abbey Road Studio No 1, 2/55 – last available, if memory serves, on an invaluable 2003 EMI British Composers compilation marking the centenary of Berkeley’s birth).

Cast in three movements, it’s a superbly cogent, immaculately crafted and engrossingly resourceful affair, plumbing genuine depths in the central Lento (where I detect echoes of Britten’s Serenade) and raptly intense seventh variation of the ambitious finale (which lasts longer than the first two movements together). Having already mentioned Pyatt and company, I should say that there’s also strong competition from members of the New London Chamber Ensemble (again on Naxos, 8/10), but it’s a huge pleasure to come across such outstandingly sensitive, stylish and keenly communicative playing as we get here from David Cooper (principal horn with the Chicago SO), Alexander Kerr (concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony) and the admirable Orion Weiss.

It was Kerr who commissioned the 2016 Trio in two movements by Baltimore-based Jonathan Leshnoff (b1973), and a most approachable and invigorating discovery it proves, too, in this exemplary display by the performers who gave the premiere. It’s preceded on this excellently engineered release by Brahms’s towering example in the form, simply glorious music that, for all the Scherzo’s thrusting energy and the finale’s rustic exuberance, carries a deeply poignant undertow, the shadowy Trio section and sorrowful Adagio mesto slow movement (in A flat minor and E flat minor respectively) reflecting the composer’s anguish over the recent death of his mother. In other words, if the programme tempts, don’t hesitate for a moment.