Eric Coates is a composer to whom one returns in the sure knowledge that the spirits will be lifted, the ear consoled and the mind stimulated by the inventive scoring, abundance of melody and a schooling in composition that enabled him to secure his effects by more subtle means than mere imitation.

Of particular note in this fourth volume is the suite Four Centuries, a work right up John Wilson’s street and one that has been recorded less on account of the forces involved. It opens with a lightly scored Prelude with flautist Alex Jakeman setting the scene that leads to an inventive fugal Hornpipe. She also introduces the gravely beautiful Pavane, which returns after a rumbustious Tambourin, with tambourine and triangle adding a faux 18th-century touch. In the Valse the flute shares the honours with a violin and harp adding ballroom glamour. The closing Rhythm employs the full panoply of the modern symphony orchestra, including three saxophones, vibraphone and a full battery of percussion. This evocation of 1930s dance styles is brilliantly executed by the BBC Philharmonic, with the sure hand of the conductor guiding them though an intoxicating cocktail from the toe-tapping introduction via a gorgeous saxophone tune to the main theme whipped up with increasing fervour on each reprise.

Coates dedicated his Three Bears Suite to his son Alfred, a clever storyteller by the age of four. Following the dramatic pause engendered by the opening motif, ‘Who’s been sitting in my chair?’, one can imagine him on tenterhooks waiting for his father’s setting to unfold.

As with his colourful treatment of the Cinderella phantasy in Vol 3, this conductor doesn’t hang around telling the tale, with each episode of the bears’ adventures vividly characterised. Of the many incidents in the narrative, nothing more endeared itself to this ear than the Bears returning to a cakewalk in resigned good humour after their hot pursuit of Goldilocks. The photograph of three bears watching sound engineer Stephen Rinker at the Media City mixing desk is a gem!

From Meadow to Mayfair takes us from a rustic dance played as marked, Allegretto semplice, into ‘A Song by the Way’, a ‘romance’, the brass luxuriating in their counterpoint to the main melody, beautifully moulded by Wilson. ‘Evening in Town’ is an elegant waltz with some snappy interjections in dance-band style deftly touched in.

Under the Stars and I Sing to You, essentially songs without words, are tunes that one can imagine might have fitted comfortably into a musical comedy of the era, their romantic ardour touchingly portrayed in the ebb and flow of these performances. The swirling waltz Footlights is a paean to London’s Theatreland in the 1930s, when the picture palaces in Leicester Square were such a draw to the young clerk in JB Priestley’s novel of the period, Angel Pavement. Wilson captures the razzmatazz of the scene in a sparkling performance, one that is likewise accorded to Music Everywhere – the Rediffusion March, the form that served Coates so admirably at the end of his career with his Dam Busters.

The recording is executed with the love and attention to detail that has characterised this whole enterprise.