David Owen Norris has made a terrific job of transcribing the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, even to the extent of realising some previously unknown sketches for No 6 dating from c1910 (discovered at Broadheath in 2007, the year after Anthony Payne’s orchestral completion). Not only is the actual piano-writing wholly idiomatic and (by the sound of it) highly rewarding to play, the finished article makes for intensely refreshing listening, as repertoire you thought you knew inside out undergoes a “spring clean”, its harmonic and contrapuntal inner workings laid bare as seldom before. At the same time, such is Norris’s swaggering conviction, appealing variety of colour and tasteful deployment of rubato, that at no time did I feel I was missing out on the extra ear-tickling textural variety or sheer physicality of the orchestral originals. That’s some achievement – and how good it is to hear No 1’s “big tune” allowed to sing out as the touchingly expressive inspiration it actually is, its essential dignity and restraint mercifully intact. I also like the glinting mischief Norris finds in No 2, even more so the menace he locates in its dark-hued C minor successor.

It’s a similar tale in Siegfried Karg-Elert’s unpublished 1914 transcription of the symphonic study Falstaff. Once again, Norris’s pianism is past praise in its scrupulous poise, immaculate touch and attention to dynamic nuance. What’s more, he also displays an acute intellectual and emotional understanding of what is one of Elgar’s most keenly proportioned, compassionate achievements (the closing pages are deeply moving). Here is artistry of a very high order, and the recording – splendidly lustrous and wholly truthful in timbre – is worthy of it. An unexpected tonic, this, and very warmly recommended.