The past quarter of a century has brought steady reappraisal of George Dyson (1883-1964), and while an extensive choral output remains his main legacy, his orchestral, chamber and piano pieces should not be overlooked, as Simon Callaghan’s intégrale of the latter confirms.

Dyson took to composition early, the blithely insouciant ‘Untitled Piece’ appearing when he was just seven. From the aftermath of the First World War, his Epigrams attest to an already fluent pianism. Thereafter he focused on anthologies for younger pianists who should have no greater difficulty with these than, say, the third or fourth books of Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, with a minor masterpiece in the laconic evocation of the test-piece Primrose Mount (1928). Four Twilight Preludes (1920) reflects the sets of character pieces given new levels of subtlety by Bridge and Ireland. Most distinctive, though, is Bach’s Birthday (1929), four fugues whose sheer brevity belies a rhythmic and tonal finesse to suggest Dyson’s remark of ‘modern idioms [being] outside the vocabulary of what I want to say’ need not be taken at face value.

Callaghan renders these and other solo pieces with a conviction not merely in their technical mastery but their musical worth. Also included here is the two-piano reduction of Concerto leggiero (1951), completed after Dyson retired as director of the Royal College of Music and whose neoclassical trenchancy contrasts with a ruminative inwardness that opens out the expressive range of its outer movements. Nor is the absence of strings a real loss, given the alacrity with which Clíodna Shanahan tackles the second piano part (listeners can judge for themselves from Eric Parkin’s recording of the orchestral original – Chandos, 8/93).

Sound and annotations (by Callaghan) leave nothing to be desired, so making this a desirable purchase for Dyson devotees or those wishing to try out some unfamiliar yet rewarding music.