The four unpublished pieces by Ivor Gurney are student works that move from Schubert (‘Despair’) – a distinct whiff of Moment Musical No 6 in the air – Mendelssohn (‘Sehnssucht’), Grieg (‘Song of the Summer Woods’) and Stanford (‘The Sea’). The two early Nocturnes are pastiche Schumann and Chopin with a dash of Coates. Not bad role models and conjuring some pretty ideas and melodies, though hardly individual or important. Yet, listening to these unpretentious and mellifluous miniatures, the feeling grows that, if they are not entirely suited to the concert hall, they must be very satisfying to play for one’s own pleasure in the privacy of the home.

After Gurney, Howard Ferguson’s Sonata comes in aural terms as the equivalent of someone hurling a brick through the conservatory window. It’s a large-scale, post-romantic work (1938-40) in memory of the composer’s friend and mentor, the pianist Harold Samuel who died in 1937. Sorrow mingles with anger and despair in the fist-shaking of the grim first and last movements, the central Poco adagio affording some pastoral contrast.

If I ever have to hear it again, I’d prefer to repeat the experience with the more fluent, integrated performance of Myra Hess’s 1942 recording (Biddulph, 3/96). Not that Bebbington delivers anything but fine, well-prepared readings, but everything is firmly studio-bound and recorded in a somewhat chilly and clinical acoustic.