Although acknowledged as a fine composer with a relatively good discography, in some respects the late, great John McCabe – who died on February 13 this year – never really had his due as a creative artist. This is partly down to his wide range of activities. Beyond composing, he was a pianist (Haydn, Nielsen, Hindemith, Bax and many more), a writer (of studies of Bartók, Haydn, Rachmaninov, Rawsthorne), conductor and administrator. He was hard to pigeonhole.

Naxos’s release of archival recordings celebrates McCabe as composer throughout, pianist in three shorter items and – the only example preserved for posterity – conductor, in his vibrant tone poem Tuning (1985), the inspiration for which came from listening to an orchestra tune up, alighting by chance on some felicitous chords. McCabe’s First Symphony (1965) has, despite its suggestive title Elegy, no declared programme. Its eloquent reversal of the classic progression of darkness to light still unsettles, the three movements – Prelude, Dance and Elegy – starting in a Vaughan Williams-like glow and ending far away.

McCabe the pianist separates the orchestral items. These recordings of the first two piano Studies date from 1977 (he re recorded them in 1998 on a BMS CD – nla), while Tamami Honma offers fascinating alternative views. McCabe’s own have a vitality and insight that is hard to beat, despite some audible noise. His account of the Fantasy on a Theme of Liszt (1967) is even more compelling than Graham Caskie’s: a performance McCabe, typically, was generous in his praise of. Naxos’s re engineering is splendid; here is a near-perfect introduction to McCabe’s diversity but focused on his most important role – the composer.