Eric Coates had a distinct liking for fairy tales, and unless my ears deceive me his narrative writing sometimes assumes a Wagnerian aspect, at 1'33" into the penultimate movement of The Enchanted Garden, for example (echoes of journeyings among the Nibelungs in Das Rheingold), or 8'17" into The Selfish Giant, where Siegfried’s woodbird seems to make a cameo appearance. Plausible, I daresay, but far removed from the more familiar soundtrack that for Coatesians of a certain age such as myself serves to conjure satchels, school blazers, grazed knees and wireless shows such as the long-running Music While You Work, where the central melody from the march Calling All Workers provided an indelibly memorable theme tune. And what a melody it is.

It’s all too easy to cast a glib ear across these wonderful tunes and the enormous creative skill that gave rise to them. If Elgar (sometimes) summoned images of Empire, Coates was a man of the English town and countryside; and this second volume of John Wilson’s latest survey of the orchestral works offers beautifully played and knowingly paced renditions of some gorgeous pieces, not all of them present in Coates’s own extensive discography. As we know it The Enchanted Garden (which was memorably recorded years ago under Stanford Robinson – 12/58) sprang to life on the wings of a commission from the Swedish Broadcasting Company, though as Richard Bratby explains in his excellent notes its roots date back to an unpublished ballet based on the story of The Seven Dwarfs. It’s made up of seven brief interlinking movements, the form intended as a ballet, but the actual effect is more like a tone poem. Had Coates himself recorded it I doubt he’d have done a better job than John Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic do here, which is in general marginally more vivid than his first recording of the work with the BBC Concert Orchestra (ASV) and has rather more of a swing to it than Barry Wordsworth’s otherwise excellent version with the LPO (Lyrita, 5/07).

Summer Days is another beguiling suite, one that Coates himself did record; and although Coates’s characteristic freshness pushes for maximum spontaneity in, say, ‘On the Edge of the Lake’ (the central section specifically), Wilson’s equally affectionate but more refined approach on this, his second recording of the work (his first is on Avie, 8/05), allied to Chandos’s beautifully balanced recording, transports the music from a specific time and place to a wider context, and no matter where or when. Coates himself was incomparable in the faster, more bracing pieces such as London Bridge and yet Wilson and his BBC players level with him (whether in 1934 or 1937) for brilliance, busyness and panache. Other pieces programmed, all of them feel-good classics, are Lazy Night, Wood Nymphs and For Your Delight. A terrific disc, then, and a delectable appetiser for Vol 3.