Alexander Walker’s interpretations of Nos 6 and 31 stand up well against their older rivals (Mackerras’s No 31 for EMI is currently unavailable) and in the Sinfonia tragica (1947-48, reworked from material for an abandoned opera on Synge’s Deirdre of the Sorrows) he produces a marvellously nuanced, rather Russian-sounding performance, with some occasionally Shostakovichian brass. Comparisons with Fredman reveal a few infelicities of ensemble and two curious errors: the solo trumpeter is too loud and forwardly placed, so that his early fanfares lack the mystery they need, and only a single side-drummer seems to be used, instead of the three Brian required, so that the tramp of doom that gradually overtakes the music does not have the bite Brian wanted, and Fredman delivered.

Walker’s feel for line and melody pays dividends in the shaping of the big melody at the centre of No 6, throughout the whole of No 31 and at the beguilingly pastoral opening of No 28. This last was premiered, controversially, by the nonagenarian Stokowski the year after Brian’s death in 1972, in a performance that in places amounted to a complete misreading. In this second performance, No 28 emerges as wonderfully compelling, with its alternation of the violent and lyrical. The celebratory No 29, in four movements like its predecessor, and luminous No 31 are bright examples of Brian’s late polyphonic style. The New Russia State Symphony Orchestra do the music proud. The sound quality is very good, too, as it needs to be for Brian’s complex, multi-layered invention. Recommended.