The Amsterdam Sinfonietta, directed from the first violin by Scot Candida Thompson, start strongly with a Les illuminations in which both Britten and Rimbaud get their due. Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan brings to the texts the dramatic energy she has to burn in her championship of Ligeti and Boulez, while the conductorless orchestra and soloist (herself sometimes a conductor) sound a natural fit.

The Frank Bridge Variations were not only premiered on Radio Hilversum but even have (from the Netherlands CO with Gordan Nikolitch) a Dutch rival in the catalogue. Thompson’s ensemble plays them with as much attention to the brooding colours surrounding the initial appearance of the theme itself as to the wit of the fifth movement’s Italian aria. The Serenade is given with its rejected extra movement, ‘Now sleeps the crimson petal’. ‘Elegy’ and ‘Dirge’ generate tension and there’s a real sense of duet between horn and tenor. Elsewhere both soloists play their parts quite straight, Gilchrist not probing around in the verse as much as do Pears (with Britten himself) or Bostridge (with Rattle), and de Waal rather remote from the text-engaged prompting that the BPO’s Radek Baborák seems to have had from Rattle and Bostridge.

An enjoyable and carefully balanced CD, certainly, but the competition – the Britten originals, the Bostridge disc (Les illuminations as well as the Serenade) and a well-sung (Toby Spence) disc from Clio Gould and her Scottish Ensemble with the same programme as here – is far from negligible.