Christopher Gunning (b1944) can number Alan Bush, Edmund Rubbra and Richard Rodney Bennett among his mentors. Since 2002 he has embarked upon a cycle of symphonies, of which the two here are the most recent (he is currently finishing an Eighth). Both the Sixth (2010) and Seventh (2011) are cast in an unbroken span (clocking in at 23 and 27 minutes respectively) and couched in a resolutely diatonic idiom. Gunning’s music displays an impressive fluency, pleasing variety of mood and no mean resourcefulness (nearly all of the thematic material in the Sixth, for example, grows out of the five-note woodwind motif heard at the very outset), and he certainly knows how to handle the orchestra. On initial acquaintance I detected echoes of (among others) Sibelius, Copland, Dutilleux, Lilburn and Arnold. Approachable and atmospheric as Gunning’s music is, however, I do have my lingering doubts about its staying power. True, Night Journey emerges effectively enough as a colourful and dramatic 12-minute tone-poem but neither symphony approaches the melodic distinction, blistering cogency or churning intensity displayed by any of the five that make up William Alwyn’s epic and magnificently communicative cycle.

Still, my nagging reservations will not be shared by everyone, so it only remains for me to report that the composer elicits finely honed and committed playing from the RPO and also supplies personable notes. Both sound and balance (Mike Hatch working in Watford Town Hall) are likewise beyond reproach.