Composed in Rathgar, Dublin, and powerfully evocative of the County Wicklow landscape, Bax’s Four Orchestral Pieces were first heard in their entirety under Geoffrey Toye in March 1914 at a Queen’s Hall concert. In 1928 Bax overhauled the first three as the Three Pieces for small orchestra, whereas the last of the set, the exquisitely assured and headily voluptuous ‘Dance of Wild Irravel’, all but disappeared from view until Bryden Thomson recorded it with the LPO (also for Chandos, 12/86). After that, Sir Andrew Davis’s new version lacks something in sensual allure. Otherwise, there’s little with which to quibble performance-wise – and there’s absolutely no disputing that Davis’s sumptuously engineered reading of the Overture, Elegy and Rondo (a predominantly sanguine, clean-cut triptych dating from the summer of 1927) trounces the Marco Polo/Naxos rival under Barry Wordsworth (7/88). Drawing some first-rate playing from the BBC Philharmonic, Davis imparts plenty of confident swagger and twinkling fun to both outer movements, just as he is scrupulously attentive to the ear-pricking subtleties of the bewitchingly beautiful, at times ghostly centrepiece.

We’re also treated to the gorgeous Phantasy for viola and orchestra that Bax penned in 1920 for the great Lionel Tertis. The present account is an accomplished one – and certainly finds soloist Philip Dukes in healthy fettle – but the finished article perhaps falls a fraction short in ardour and sweep next to both Vernon Handley’s world premiere recording with Rivka Golani and the RPO (Conifer, 4/89 – nla) and Roger Chase’s stylish partnership with Stephen Bell and the BBC Concert Orchestra (Dutton, 4/13). No matter: for the sake of other two items alone, every Baxian will surely want to investigate this new Chandos survey.