The surprising highlight of this collection is the attractive Sibelius Petite Suite for brass septet, written at the end of the 1880s, not in the least typical but full of attractive ideas. A most engaging opening ‘Prelude’, with its staccato triplet clusters and answering sonorities in the lower brass, shows a fine feeling for the medium, and the warmer sonority of the central Andantino is also most agreeable. A good quiz piece for visitors!

Glazunov’s In modo religioso, led by the eloquent solo trumpet of Adam Wright, shows the Russian composer’s ready (and easy-going) melodic facility, so that the fierce opening discords of the Schuller Symphony for brass, which follows, are the more potent. But this is an ingeniously inventive work from a composer who as a former orchestral horn player explores the medium imaginatively, especially in the technically demanding Scherzo, and the strangely haunting Lento desolato.

The Strauss Festmusik is brilliantly played and detailed, but here one feels a little underwhelmed until the closing climax of a work which is above all prolix and flamboyant. The Elgar Severn Suite, however, is splendidly done, with the reprise of the swinging main theme at the end most effectively managed. Throughout, the playing and ensemble of these brass professionals of the future are excellent, and the recording combines sonority and brilliance with good detail.