Hats off to the RSNO and Martin Yates for resurrecting these three substantial orchestral works by Charles-Marie Widor, the composer who has led many a couple of newlyweds back down the aisle with the Toccata from his Fifth Organ Symphony. His output was sizeable and extended way beyond the organ loft of Saint-Sulpice. We have here his Cello Concerto (1878), the Second Symphony (1882) and – best of the lot – three preludes from his opera Les pêcheurs de Saint-Jean (1905), all of them apparently recorded for the first time.

Shades of various composers flit in and out of this music – Wagner, Saint-Saëns, Schumann and César Franck. But it’s one of those intriguing discs that make you want to hear more of a composer now renowned only for one part of one organ work. The joints of the Cello Concerto do creak a bit but the French folk-like material is charming. Torleif Thedéen is a tasteful exponent of it, opening out passionately when given the chance. Contrary to accepted practice, the finale’s coda ends tranquilly. Although George Bernard Shaw said of Widor’s Second Symphony that ‘Berlioz himself, in his most uninspired moments, could not have been more elaborately and intelligently dull’, it has strong ideas and a sure impulse, while the operatic orchestral preludes exude genuine dramatic colour. Well worth exploring.