John Turner, together with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Gavin Sutherland, has already given us a highly attractive collection of contemporary English concertante works for recorder (7/00). Here, in a further series of pieces, all written or especially arranged for the soloist, Turner again demonstrates how readily and divertingly this ‘period’ instrument was taken up by 20th-century composers.

All of those represented here write tonally and with a ready supply of melody, none more invitingly so than the opening Petite Suite by John Gardner (Manchester-born in 1905), which would grace any concert programme. Its five movements range wittily and expressively from Baroque pastiche to a pair of Marches joyeuse and funèbre, the latter drawing on the composer’s First Symphony.

John McCabe is a Liverpudlian whose Domestic Life is as good-humouredly animated as any Merseybeat inspiration, yet has a balancing finesse. Peter Lawson’s Song of the Lesser Twayblade chortles chimerically but also has a pastoral lyrical underlay, for it celebrates an orchid rather than a bird. Kenneth Leighton’s Double Concerto combines recorder with harpsichord, first solemnly and introspectively, then rhythmically and sparklingly, and finally intensely and elegiacally.

Philip Lane’s Suite champêtre, has a distinctly light-hearted gallic atmosphere, with touches of nostalgia (the ‘Ronde’ with its jaunty, limping rhythm is well matched by the sprightly ‘Promenade’), and the closing Rondo, with its lush central interlude, reminds us that the original scoring included a harp. The Aubade of Wilfred Mellers (the composer’s own arrangement of a Sonatina) has associations with both childhood and spring, moving from delicate evocation to a rhythmic giocoso finale.

Norman Kay’s Pavane is a similar transcription. It is not in the least Elizabethan, but, with a spicy harmonic patina, affectionately remembers Thomas Pitfield, whom the composer knew as a student at the Royal Manchester College of Music.

Stephen Dodgson’s Concerto Chacony (another re-arrangement) – although again using another early dance format, this time with ground bass – begins with a simple descending scalic figure but imaginatively varies its material to move towards a strong culminating climax.

Two of the most memorable items (which also receive a lion’s share of John Turner’s detailed back-up documentation), are also the briefest: the pair of Pipe Tunes by Robin Milford, the first a delicious siciliano, the second a haunting, gentle air. They come from a long-forgotten oratorio, A Prophet in the Land, first heard at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 1931. But these two charming morceaux de concert certainly deserve to be remembered, especially when played so winningly as here.

Indeed, John Turner’s masterly performances throughout are very persuasive indeed, as is the sympathetic back-up provided by Gavin Sutherland and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. First rate recording, too.