It was in 1939 that Benjamin Britten first met the Canadian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee (1900-64). Having recently returned from a six-year sojourn on the island of Bali, McPhee would no doubt have enthused to his younger colleague about that island’s indigenous gamelan music (of which he was by then a noted authority and pioneering champion). McPhee’s best-known achievement remains his ‘Toccata for Orchestra and Two Pianos’ Tabuh-tabuhan, written in Mexico City in 1936 and premièred that same year under Carlos Chávez. East meets West in this beguiling creation, and Slatkin masterminds a poised account that makes the music sound more than ever like a template for minimalism. It’s preceded here by a 1941 recording of McPhee and Britten performing the former’s Balinese Ceremonial Music for two pianos.

In Janaury 1956, Britten travelled to Bali. He, too, was bowled over by the island’s ‘remarkable culture’ and especially its gamelan tradition, which in turn spurred him to complete his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (a Sadler’s Wells commission with which he had become rather bogged down). Anyone not willing to go the whole hog and invest in Oliver Knussen’s dazzling set of the complete score (Virgin, 7/90) would do well to lend an ear to this Chandos newcomer which gives us an effective sequence devised in 1997 by Donald Mitchell and Mervyn Cooke. Lasting 51 minutes, it is cast in six parts, the fourth of which includes a generous helping of the gamelan-inspired material for ‘Pagoda-Land’ missing from the composer-approved concert suite assembled by Norman Del Mar in 1963. Slatkin directs as if to the manner born and the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s stylish, bright-eyed contribution is captured with thrilling realism by the Chandos engineers (the SACD equivalent should be worth seeking out by audiophiles). Altogether, a most enjoyable issue.