As swansongs go, this striking coupling of two of Sir Eugene Goossens’s meatiest large-scale offerings under the baton of the late Richard Hickox really is something to cherish. The epic First Symphony of 1938-40 has not lacked passionate advocacy on disc: both David Measham (with the Adelaide SO on Unicorn-Kanchana, 11/80 – nla) and Vernon Handley (with the West Australian SO on ABC Classics, A/05) masterminded high-quality displays of pleasing discipline and impressive thrust. Hickox is more realistically recorded than either and draws arguably the most finely groomed orchestral playing. If there’s a touch more symphonic sinew and sense of long-term integration about Handley’s uncommonly lucid conception, no one coming to this ambitious canvas for the first time could fail to be struck by Hickox’s excitingly committed and typically redblooded handling of what is a most imposing and rewarding creation.

The Phantasy Concerto dates from 1942 and this would appear to be its first commercial recording. Inspired in part by “the fantastic and sinister character” of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Devil in the Belfry and written for the Spanish pianist José Iturbi (who first performed it in February 1944 with the composer at the helm of the Cincinnati SO), it’s an attractively spicy, densely plotted score in four linked movements lasting just over 25 minutes, in which the piano largely eschews ostentatious display in favour of a more concertante role (“conversational” was how Goossens described it). Howard Shelley is the fearless soloist and he receives alert support from Hickox and the Melbourne SO. Eminently truthful sound, too, with an astutely judged balance throughout. I doubt whether many more sheerly enjoyable discs will come my way during the remainder of 2009.