This fifth volume of William Alwyn’s orchestral music from Naxos boasts premiere recordings of two attractive early finds. Unheard for more than seven decades, both Aphrodite in Aulis – an eclogue for small orchestra (1932) – and The Innumerable Dance – An English Overture (1933) derive their inspiration (and titles) from literary sources and manifest a confident touch. The rest of the programme will be familiar to Alwynites. Like Hickox before him, Lloyd-Jones gives us all six of the colourful Elizabethan Dances written for the BBC’s 1957 Light Music Festival (the composer recorded only four) and he secures playing of honest vigour and congenial spring.

There’s a nimble contribution from long-time RLPO principal oboist Jonathan Small in the idyllic two-movement concerto dating from the darkest days of the war. Perhaps Alwyn himself extracts a shade greater enchantment and ardour from the voluptuous symphonic prelude The Magic Island (after The Tempest), commissioned by Barbirolli in 1952. Otherwise, I have no grumbles. What’s more, the engineering is better ventilated than on some previous instalments within this enjoyable series.

The Dutton anthology centres around this figure’s ouptut for flute. Indeed, it was as a flautist that the 15-year-old Alwyn gained admission to the Royal Academy of Music in 1920, later joining the ranks of the LSO (with whom he frequently performed under Elgar’s baton), so it comes as no surprise that he writes with such fluency and understanding for the instrument. Of the six works here I’m particularly drawn to Naiades, a pellucid, often ravishing fantasy-sonata for flute and harp composed in 1971 for Christopher Hyde-Smith and Marisa Robles. William Bennett was the lucky dedicatee of the engaging 1980 Concerto, while the distinguished French virtuoso René Le Roy premiered the resourceful (and technically demanding) Divertimento that Alwyn wrote for the 1941 ISCM Festival in New York.

Ten years later, Alwyn fashioned his two-movement Trio for Le Roy, pianist Jacques Février and composer-cellist Roger Albin. It’s a most fetching creation, as is the compact Sonata from 1948. The French Suite (1937) is a graceful reworking of 18th-century airs for flute, violin, viola and harp. Needless to say, Philippa Davies performs with phenomenal control, sensitivity and panache throughout, and her colleagues in the Nash Ensemble tender immaculate support. Both CDs are strongly recommended.