Christopher Wright, born in 1954, is a composer who was for most of his working life a music teacher but who in 1993, when he was still not 50, was forced through ill-health to retire. Since then he has concentrated on composing, writing here a sequence of attractive works in a relatively conservative idiom, all very recent.

His own booklet-notes make it clear that the opening work, Spring Overture, was directly inspired by Walton’s Portsmouth Point, and here similarly the writing involves sharp syncopated rhythms with a jazzy flavour. A Little Light Music is a compact four-movement work with a lovely Sarabande as the second movement and with a rushing finale marked Prestissimo. Barry Wordsworth draws excellent playing from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia in that work as well as in the final item on the disc, the Capriccio Burlesque, which as the title might suggest brings more echoes of Walton.

The overture and the Threnody are also very well conducted, this time by Gavin Sutherland, with the Threnody striking a deeper meditative mood, inspired by the death of the composer’s mother. It is sparely orchestrated in four linked sections, leading to a powerful climax halfway through, and with a brief agitato section leading back to a section marked, like the opening, Lacrimoso. A fine work.

The other two pieces, Idyll for small orchestra and the Divertimento for treble recorder and strings were designed for amateurs and are here beautifully played by the Manchester Sinfonia conducted by the composer. First-rate sound typical of Dutton issues, and excellent presentation.