Here’s a terrific new version of the dashing Piano Concerto that Bliss wrote for Solomon, who gave the premiere at Carnegie Hall with Sir Adrian Boult and the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra during British Week at the 1939 World’s Fair (you can hear Bryan Crimp’s restoration of this remarkable document on APR, A/03). Piers Lane dispatches those fearsome double octaves at the outset with thrilling bravura swagger, his contribution throughout evincing both sinewy strength and fine rhythmic snap, while at the same time extracting every ounce of lyrical beauty from the many more introspective passages. Granted, in the gorgeously languorous and deeply affecting slow movement he may not quite possess Noel Mewton-Wood’s mesmerically pellucid touch (BMS, 11/03), but he comes mighty close and is fortunate in receiving such attentive, supple support from Leon Botstein and his eager young colleagues. A most impressive display, this, and genuine tonic to boot.

The Rubbra, by contrast, has suffered neglect; indeed, this would appear to be the only commercial recording of it since Denis Matthews’s pioneering early stereo version for HMV with Sir Malcolm Sargent and the BBC SO (4/58, last sighted on British Composers). Inscribed to the Hindustani sarod player Ali Akbar Khan (whose improvisatory music-making made a big impression on the composer when he heard him in the spring of 1955), it’s a work of conspicuous organic subtlety and quiet individuality which eschews any suggestion of barnstorming display and shares something of that same sense of pantheistic wonder and spiritual devotion so loftily distilled in the slow movement and finale respectively of the Sixth and Seventh symphonies that flank it in Rubbra’s catalogue. If memory serves, both Matthews with Sargent and Malcolm Binns with Vernon Handley – in their broadcast performance from February 1976 with the composer in attendance (BBC Radio Classics, 9/97 – nla) – were rather more mobile in the first movement and ruminative central ‘Dialogue’, but these sensitive and stylish newcomers do ample justice to a score as haunting as it is nourishing.

Sandwiched between the two main courses comes Bax’s winsome Morning Song (‘Maytime in Sussex’), a delightfully deft vehicle for Harriet Cohen dating from 1946, and whose fragrant, outdoor charm is most affectionately conveyed by these excellent artists. With its admirably realistic sound and truthful balance, this represents a most stimulating and enjoyable addition to Hyperion’s invaluable Romantic Piano Concerto series.