Performer, teacher and promoter – Laurence Perkins was ideally placed to have created this anthology with ‘the bassoon leading a musical journey through the twentieth century’, as is confirmed over almost two and a half hours of often unfamiliar but always worthwhile music.

Richard Henry Walthew’s Introduction and Allegro (1900) is appealing late Victoriana, and a world away in aesthetic terms from the acerbic irony of Prokofiev’s Scherzo humoristique (1912). For all its classical inclination, Saint-Saëns’s Bassoon Sonata (1921) has a formal and expressive unpredictability that belies its being the penultimate work of an ‘old master’, then the Lament and Dance of the Witches from Bantock’s incidental music to Macbeth (1926) evince vividly dark humour. In its unusual but resonant scoring, Bax’s Threnody and Scherzo (1936) exudes a yearning late romanticism to which the tensile classicism of Hindemith’s Bassoon Sonata (1938) makes for a striking foil. The brevity and wit of William Schuman’s Quartettino (1939) complements the sardonic verve of Dutilleux’s Sarabande et Cortège (1942), then the whimsical poise of Herbert Howells’s Minuet (1945) concludes the first half of this collection.

The second half begins with Elizabeth Maconchy’s Bassoon Concertino (1952), whose deftly classical form with hints of Vaughan Williams and Finzi makes it among her most accessible pieces. Alan Ridout essays a diptych of pointed contrasts in Caliban and Ariel (1974), while Panufnik’s Bassoon Concerto (1985) affords the deepest emotions in its diverse yet unified and often graphic evocation of the individual in confrontation against a corrupt and decaying system. Richard Rodney Bennett’s Bassoon Sonata (1991) is typical of his later music in its wide-ranging expression held in check by a flexibly classical structure, as is David Bedford’s Dreams of Stac Pollaidh (1999) in its teasingly brief variations on an already elusive theme.

An engaging guide throughout, Perkins gets sterling support from a wealth of fine musicians and ensembles. His booklet notes, setting each work in the context of relevant world events, are a quirkily perceptive enhancement of this enterprising and wholly recommendable project.