This an attractive and stimulating follow-up to Meridian’s first collection of Alan Bush’s chamber music (11/02), a medium in which he excelled. The masterly four-movement Lyric Interlude (1944), though characteristically well organised, shows the composer at his most disarmingly melodic. It is consolatory in mood, its intensity of feeling deriving from personal tragedy – the death of one of his three daughters, Alice, in a road accident. The Andantino is full of tender affection; the scherzo is surprisingly and engagingly light-hearted – perhaps a youthful portrait – and the passionately lyrical finale is life-assertive rather than a threnody.

The Meditation on a German Song of 1848, originally conceived for violin and orchestra and adapted for violin and piano in the same year, perhaps expresses the composer’s feelings about death even more poignantly. It introduces a beautiful, melancholy German melody, taken from a song which tells of a conscripted horse-soldier’s pledge as he rides ‘for freedom’s sake’ to almost certain death. The central section leads to an abrasive sequence picturing the ‘bitter dregs’ of battle, and the work ends touchingly and elegiacally.

Le quatorze juillet, jaunty and spirited but with moments of reflection, is an entertaining tribute to the wartime Résistance. The Three Raga Melodies (1961), most effectively conceived for solo violin although written in classic R¯ag¯a styles and tonalities, have a surprisingly Western feeling. The first two use Aeolian and Dorian scales respectively, and even the feverish sinuosity of the third shows how intercontinental are the influences of folk music.

With the Serenade and Duet and the delightful miniatures of Op 117a, Bush finally moves into a distinctly English modal style and an appealing personal simplicity of utterance (less concentrated than in the Lyric Interlude).

This is a first-class survey. Bush’s earlier music was written for Max Rostal; Adam Summerhayes proves an equally committed, accomplished and understanding advocate, admirably partnered by Catherine Summerhayes, and the Meridian balance and recording cannot be faulted. Strongly recommended.