Cipriani Potter these days is just a name in dusty history books recounting Britain’s heyday as ‘Das Land ohne Musik’. There’s far more to him to be discovered, of course: he was a grand-student (via Thomas Attwood) of Mozart and his talent was appreciated by Beethoven. A virtuoso pianist, he studied in Vienna and Italy before returning to his native London to join the staff of the (now Royal) Academy of Music. He composed fairly prodigiously, mainly in instrumental forms, until 1837, when he virtually abandoned composition for the life of a performer, teacher and editor, most notably of Mozart’s complete piano music.

Potter’s First Symphony (of nine) shows what he had learnt on the Continent. Themes are well-wrought and distinctive; counterpoint is deftly employed; orchestration is thoughtful, with characteristic, exposed writing for woodwinds and, especially in the rather catchy Minuet, horns. Influences from the 18th-century symphonists are evident, as well as from Beethoven, whose Eighth Symphony shared the bill at the premiere on May 29, 1826. Resurrecting the forgotten music of second-tier composers such as Potter is very much Howard Griffiths’s shtick, and he draws shapely playing from the BBC Welsh orchestra, who sound as if Potter had been in their rep for years.

The same is true of Claire Huangci’s performance of a (rather pompous) Introduction and (more playful) Rondo from 1827, and a concert overture depicting scenes from the tangled plot of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, its dramatic tempo fluctuations exploited to the full. ‘Forgotten’ music such as this rarely receives such fine and committed championing as Potter does here.