This is an engaging, albeit rather short programme of historical recordings from 1967 and 1974. The largest work by far is William Kraft’s Nonet (1958), an invigorating suite in six movements for five brass and four percussionists. Kraft (b1923) was by trade an orchestral percussionist – with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, no less – and composed a good number of works for or involving his own set of instruments, including several pieces in a series of 15 Encounters, plus concertos and other works. The Nonet’s opening Presto contains a substantial central episode for unaccompanied percussion that gathers up the brass as it accelerates towards the reprise of its opening fanfare. The remaining five movements integrate the two groups in an involving sequence of dramatic andantes and varied scherzos.

Frank Campo’s discography is nothing like so extensive. Music for wind instruments figures prominently and the three Madrigals for brass quintet were written for the Los Angeles Brass Quintet. They are a product of their time (the late 1960s; they were published in 1971 and recorded three years later), Campo (b1927) treating the 16th-century madrigal form (more by association than in any strict way) fairly severely. I wonder what Monteverdi would have made of them, particularly the breathing noises in the concluding ‘Aria perduta’! The two brief concertinos, for harp by Rayner Brown (1912 99) and piano by William Schmidt (1926 2009), provide pleasant textural contrast though are musically less complex; Schmidt’s is the more fun of the two. The sound has been remastered very well by Sonny Ausman.