No sooner had I greeted Lyrita’s enterprising refurbishment of Stanford Robinson’s 1956 BBC broadcast of RVW’s Falstaff opera Sir John in Love (3/16) than along comes Martin Yates’s sparkling orchestration of the composer’s own sizeable two-piano arrangement of the same work. Cast in six movements and a finale, Fat Knight takes its name from the composer’s provisional title for the opera and plays for around 53 minutes. The descriptive titles given to each movement were sanctioned by the RVW Trust and make it easier to follow the action. I was especially taken with the extended fourth movement entitled ‘A field near Windsor’ (which derives all its material from Act 3 scene 2 and includes the Entr’acte, the tune Greensleeves and finale) and agree with annotator Lewis Foreman that it could justifiably be programmed as a standalone item. Yates secures some commendably alert playing from the RSNO, who seem to be thoroughly enjoying the whole experience – and a special mention for the principal trombone, whose splendidly ostentatious pronouncements in the second movement (‘Falstaff at the Garter Inn’) are guaranteed to raise a smile.

Yates is also responsible for the expert orchestration of the Henry V overture, originally conceived for brass band and probably first heard at a historical pageant some time in 1933 or 1934. Certainly, it’s hard to conceive of a more sympathetic performance of either this or the radiant Serenade to Music in its purely orchestral guise, in which leader James Clark plays with rapturously songful tone. Unlike some recent Dutton SACDs, this is a genuine multichannel production, whose glowingly realistic sound emanates from the acoustically kind surroundings of Dundee’s Caird Hall.