This is a welcome addition by the Ulster Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta to the recording of Moeran’s orchestral rhapsodies and In the Mountain Country made in 1989 by the same orchestra and the late Vernon Handley for Chandos. Handley’s beautifully shaped interpretations had a polish and insight, and were splendidly complemented by the clear sound of Chandos’s engineering.

A hard act to follow, yet this new recording has a vibrancy and precision which is thoroughly beguiling. While I might occasionally argue about one or two of the chosen tempi, Falletta brings a vivacity and enthusiasm to these works which is infectious. The wartime Overture to a Masque (1944) is particularly sprightly, its buoyant opening tempo well contrasted with the delicious pastoral that forms the central paragraph (with some delightfully affecting oboe solos). Handley’s First Rhapsody (1922) has, for me, a little more mystery, and his Second Rhapsody (1924/41) more spaciousness in the big Baxian tune at the heart of the work, but Falletta invokes a persuasive grey landscape (inspired by the scenery of County Mayo) for the much underrated In the Mountain Country (1921), and, with Benjamin Frith’s delicate pianism, brings an immediacy to the bittersweet Rhapsody in F sharp (1943) where much of the detail of Moeran’s brilliant score is satisfyingly discernible. A fine, scandalously neglected work, and the composer’s only work for piano and orchestra, it rivals John Ireland’s magnificent Piano Concerto of 1930, which may well have inspired it.