If a resistant strain of British pastoralism has to exist, better it cross-fertilises with expressive microtonal slides and gives a fraternal nod to post-minimalist American neo-tonal music. That’s the message Welsh composer John Metcalf’s Paradise Haunts… for violin and orchestra (1995) communicated to me even if, as I noticed later, the composer rejects a tag of “minimal” music. The title suggested itself after Metcalf read about the film-maker Derek Jarman, and the significance Jarman’s garden had in the final months of his life. It’s fascinating to speculate what Jarman the onetime punk hell-raiser would have made of this determinately pretty music, but I have to concede it’s difficult not to be charmed.

The strength of Metcalf’s score lies in its horse-sure sense of shaping over an extended, one-movement span and his creative handling of the orchestra. The piece begins with an explosion of lyrical detail – melodic cells in the solo violin laced with potential are placed against harmonically fertile wind chords, and Metcalf treads a skilful balance between evoking generic post-The Lark Ascending lyricism while avoiding being overly derivative. Thomas Bowes has the right kind of sound – warm and dutifully expressive – to highlight the music’s melodic strengths, and his energetic pursuit of Metcalf’s lavish decoration powers the music onwards, through the overlapping repetitions of the middle section towards its cathartic conclusion.

Three Mobiles for saxophone and orchestra is rather too cute; In Time of Daffodils, settings of Keats, Wordsworth and others for baritone and orchestra, is sturdier with a natural sense of narrative that flows from the poetry.