This is an imaginative coupling since both Britten and Maw are represented by song-cycles with guitar as well as 20-minute solo guitar works based on music by another composer. For Britten it’s the incomparable Dowland, two of whose songs frame the whole collection; for Maw, Mendelssohn – the Intermezzo from his Second String Quartet. Both Britten and Maw end with music by the borrowed composer – a modest gesture since it ensures that the music of the other composer is what stays in the listener’s mind. Britten’s Nocturnal is saturated in Dowland as well as the artistry of Julian Bream, for whom it was written, but Stephen Marchionda is always convincing.

In Music of Memory (1989) Maw brings in the main quotation, in full diatonic harmony, as early as 1’45”, and it comes back halfway through and again at the end. In between there are many different textures, usually improvisatory, but there’s even a fugato. These ruminations hover aroundthe Mendelssohn almost as if the guitarist is picking it out by ear.

It is an eloquent piece but Maw’s Thomas Hardy cycle Six Interiors, composed more than 20 years earlier, is just as impressive. This is true Hardy music, arising from the pessimism of inescapable destiny, barely lifting with the last song about a church bell complaining at having been recast. At times the agonies of the text tax a slender guitar accompaniment and occasionally the vocal range plunges Langridge into the depths. But, needless to say, his artistry is impeccable and Britten’s Chinese Songs are a further delight. These first recordings of the Maw works should alert guitarists and singers to new repertoire.