Christopher Ball (b1936) studied clarinet at the Royal Northern College of Music and conducting at the Guildhall School of Music (where he won the Ricordi Prize in his first year and attended masterclasses with the likes of Monteux, Silvestri and Solti). As a clarinettist he enjoyed a busy freelance career playing in the Hallé under Barbirolli, and as a conductor he went on to enjoy spells with the Vancouver SO and Royal Ballet. He was active in the early music scene of the 1970s, founding both the Praetorius Consort and the London Baroque Trio (in which he played recorder). Recent years have seen him devoting himself entirely to composition.

I dived straight into the large-scale Cello Concerto No 1, written for the 24-year-old Croatian Stjepan Hauser. Recorded at its August 2010 world premiere in Weston-super-Mare before an extraordinarily well-behaved audience, Ball’s 37-minute canvas receives a most enthusiastic welcome. Listening at home, however, I have to say I found it a very long haul indeed. A few signposts in the booklet would have been a boon, but unfortunately the composer himself is not willing to lend any assistance: ‘I have never enjoyed analytical programme notes, as music, to me, is chiefly an emotional human experience and is in no way improved by being intellectually analysed.’ By way of an instructive comparison, I promptly sought out those masterly specimens in the genre by Moeran and Finzi, both of which struck me as light years ahead of Ball’s in terms of far-sighted rigour, melodic distinction, harmonic incident and expressive fibre. The concertos for oboe and horn are rather less prone to sprawl, though once again I do find the innocuously tuneful, wanly pastoral idiom stifling in its timidity. Ball’s miniatures and British folksong arrangements undoubtedly work best, toothsome morsels which, the composer tells us, feature regularly on Alan Titchmarsh’s weekly BBC radio show Melodies for You (indeed, two offerings here – In the Yorkshire Dales and On a Beautiful Day – bear a dedication to the broadcaster).

The performances are consistently shapely, the recordings perfectly fine. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: if you like this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you’ll like. For my own part, I shall politely pass.