Much painstaking detective work and considerable editorial expertise went into this first recording of Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony in an early incarnation for two pianos. A close inspection of the unpublished manuscript with its many annotations, crossings-out and pastings-in revealed just how closely Michael Mullinar (1895-1973) collaborated with the composer. Unlike Mullinar’s own stylish one- and two-piano arrangements of the Sixth Symphony (of which he was the dedicatee), we do not know precisely when it was performed but can be pretty sure that it received at least one play-through with friends and colleagues in attendance (as was the composer’s wont when introducing new works). Fascinating listening it makes, too, its infinitely subtle harmonic palette illuminated to frequently revelatory effect. Lovers of this symphony (arguably the most technically assured and elegantly proportioned of the composer’s nine) should most certainly investigate, safe in the knowledge that RVW’s heartwarming inspiration is marvellously served on this occasion by Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow.

The experienced husband-and wife duo lend equally idiomatic and bracingly articulate advocacy to the two-piano arrangement by Vally Lasker and Helen Bidder (who served on the teaching staff with Holst at St Paul’s School, Hammersmith) of the sprightly 1933 dance medley The Running Set. Annotator John Francis recalls how RVW was dismayed that one newspaper critic had failed to recognise the Highland jig, ‘Cock o’ the North’, and quoted instead some dodgy lines from the drinking song ‘Aunty Mary’, which uses the same tune (‘Chase me Charlie, Chase me Charlie, I’ve lost a leg of my drawers’)! Maurice Jacobson’s sympathetic reworking of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was published in 1947, and I’d take these artists’ ideally cogent and passionate view over a goodly number of orchestral rivals. Excellent sound and balance, too, the results always firmly focused and truthful in timbre.

By way of a sad postscript, news has just reached me that Anthony Goldstone passed away on January 2, 2017, aged 72. This nourishing Albion release stands as a worthy memorial to his sterling musicianship.