Sir Andrew Davis’s first recording for Chandos brings this extravagantly enjoyable resuscitation of The Crown of India, an “Imperial Masque in Two Tableaux” written swiftly in response to a lucrative fee from impresario Oswald Stoll (1866-1942). The latter hit upon the idea of promoting a stage work inspired by the Delhi Durbar of December 1911 (a huge pageant organised to pay homage to King George V and Queen Mary as the new Emperor and Empress of India). Elgar himself conducted the first fortnight of the masque’s successful run at London’s Coliseum Theatre, where it shared the bill with music-hall variety acts. Henry Hamilton’s verse will doubtless provoke titters (“little better than doggerel”, as annotator Andrew Neill puts it), but Elgar’s music (mostly compiled from discarded material in his sketchbooks) is a different matter, displaying fertility of imagination, boldness of orchestral colour and an arresting range of mood. To quote Neill again: “It may not be India, but it is Elgar, who did this sort of thing better than anyone else.”

The demolition of the publisher’s archives in the early 1970s eradicated all existing orchestral material but Anthony Payne has managed to piece together the original score, drawing upon the piano arrangement by Hugh Blair (formerly organist of Worcester Cathedral) in addition to the five surviving movements that Elgar selected for the already familiar suite premiered at the 1912 Three Choirs Festival in Hereford. The complete entertainment is housed on disc 1 but I suspect the majority will prefer Andrew Davis’s own, altogether more compact edition on the second disc, which omits the spoken element (the two CDs sensibly retail for the price of one – just in case you were wondering).

The performance possesses all the sterling virtues that we have come to expect from one of this composer’s most distinguished exponents. Sir Andrew directs with contagious relish, no little charisma (witness the glinting spectacle of the “March of the Mogul Emperors”) and instinctive ebb and flow, the BBC PO and Sheffield Philharmonic Choir acquitting themselves in kind with admirable skill and commitment. Both vocal soloists are excellent (Gerald Finley projects marvellously in “The Rule of England”), and the three speakers do what they can with Hamilton’s clunky couplets. The fill-ups are perceptively handled, too, not least the markedly subdued and darkly sumptuous Coronation March of 1911, while both the Imperial March (1896-97) and lesser-known Empire March (1924) have confidence and burnished splendour to spare.

With its gloriously ample sonics and attractive artwork, this set should find favour with every Elgar devotee.