Martin Outram, viola player in the outstanding Maggini Quartet, here tackles an attractive sequence of works. Sadly the recording, with the instruments balanced close, is unkind to the viola, making it sound sour, particularly in the double-stopping at the opening of the disc’s first work, the Viola Sonata of Gordon Jacob, one of his later pieces, written in a more advanced style than earlier.

That said, there is everything in favour of this delightful selection, a worthy successor to Outram’s disc of the viola music of Arnold Bax (1/07). Jacob’s Sonata, written in 1978, has a warmly meditative slow movement, brief and to the point like all four movements, leading to an intermezzo and moto perpetuo finale. Malcolm Arnold’s Sonata was written in 1947 for his fellow LPO member Frederick Riddle, while Arnold was still principal trumpet of the orchestra. This is similarly incisive in its three movements, an Andante with sharp changes of mood, leading to an Allegretto grazioso and a Presto feroce finale, ending in a neat pay-off, typical of the composer.

Lennox Berkeley’s Sonata, dating from 1946, demonstrates his first flowering of individuality after his lessons with Nadia Boulanger. It was written for Watson Forbes and is again compact, with a central meditative slow movement leading to a sharply rhythmic finale. Frustratingly, the thematic material never quite sticks in the mind but it is a beautifully crafted work, well worth hearing.

The transcriptions of cello sonatas are both longer but equally effective. The Delius, a late work of 1916 in a single movement, was transcribed by Outram himself, while John Ireland’s Sonata, a popular work in its time, was transcribed by Lionel Tertis, the player who more than anyone brought the viola to new notice, when it was still regarded as an incidental instrument. A valuable collection, despite the reservation on the recording of the solo instrument, well worth investigating by anyone fond of English music of the inter-war years.