With this marvellous archival release – specifically that of the Ninth (1951) – of BBC broadcasts conducted by Myer Fredman, all 32 symphonies by Havergal Brian are once again available on CD at the same time. No 9 has not yet featured in Naxos’s cycle, and the recordings by Groves (9/78, 9/86) and Del Mar (4/11) are no longer available. Fredman’s account is splendid, with interpretative variances to those forebears on disc – although occurring in 1971, between Del Mar’s (1959) and Groves’s (1976) – from the pacing of the striking introduction to the joyous tintinnabulations of the coda (Brian’s most festive ending), and the assurance with which he navigated everything between.

Fredman (1932-2014), an acclaimed exponent also of Bax, understood Brian’s music innately and remains one of his finest interpreters (cf also Symphonies Nos 6 and 16 – Lyrita, 9/08), one of the first to convincingly balance Brian’s massive orchestral textures despite having no performing tradition to fall back on. Fredman knew how to shape the music, too, as in the alternately bleak and kaleidoscopic Eighth (1949) – this is the fastest of any on disc – or the ultra-concise, coruscating Twenty-Second (1964 65, all 10 minutes of it). So, too, with those heart-stopping melodies Brian was so adept at, such as at 12'43" in No 8, the wistful tune opening No 9’s central Adagio or the main theme of the long final section of No 24 (1965), one of Brian’s most gripping single-movement designs. I well recall the Radio 3 broadcast of No 24 (in 1974, alongside Nos 6 and 16), and being immediately impressed.

These performances, all half a century old or more, still sound extraordinarily vivid and convincing, comparing well with the modern versions directed by Alexander Walker (who also balances Brian’s complex sonorities adroitly). Like annotator John Pickard, I regret Fredman never recorded Nos 10 and 23 to complete Brian’s two symphonic trilogies. But let’s be grateful for what he did set down.