As I expected, this is definitive Rawsthorne and it fills gaps in the current record catalogue. McCabe – in his triple capacity as performer, composer and writer – has shown an uncanny sympathy with his fellow Lancastrian, whom he knew, and the kind of understated but steely precision his music embodies. In spite of his two piano concertos Rawsthorne wrote few solos, so this CD is filled out with Lambert’s delightful duets. The Rawsthorne oeuvre is filled out, too, with the intriguing but immature Valse and the Ballade in G sharp minor from the late 1920s (neither of them in Grove). Gordon Green gave the premieres but the scores only surfaced among his papers after his death. Then the Theme and Four Studies from the early 1940s may never have been performed in the composer’s lifetime (in Grove: wrong date). The real Rawsthorne begins with the Bagatelles and stays on that level with the wry and sometimes comic Sonatina, the Four Romantic Pieces written for his piano teacher Frank Merrick and – much the longest single movement – the resourceful late Ballade written for John Ogdon.

Rawsthorne’s approach to the piano is rooted in Chopin, whom he admired, but his writing is stamped with his own personality through his individual use of harmony. He made a valuable contribution to 20th-century British piano music. Excellent performances, well recorded.