Originally issued in 2012 as a digital-only offering, this lovely Finzi programme now makes a welcome debut on silver disc. The composer’s first work to appear in print, the 1921-22 song-cycle By Footpath and Stile sets six poems by Thomas Hardy for baritone and string quartet, its chamber instrumentation following the example of George Butterworth’s (then recently published) Love Blows as the Wind Blows and Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge. Marcus Farnsworth sings with beguilingly fresh timbre and winning strength of characterisation, and his nourishing partnership with the Finzi Quartet has ravishing poise, tenderness and depth of expression to commend it. Likewise, oboist Ruth Bolister shines in the Interlude, a splendidly inventive, harmonically tangy and impeccably crafted essay dating from 1933 (and much admired by, among others, Rubbra and Vaughan Williams).

Commissioned by David Campbell and the Endellion Quartet to celebrate the composer’s centenary in 2001, Christian Alexander’s deft arrangement of the popular Five Bagatelles is wonderfully served here, with BBC National Orchestra of Wales principal clarinet Robert Plane’s characteristically unruffled, golden-toned contribution a constant source of pleasure. Of the three remaining items (all fashioned by Alexander at the behest of the Finzi Quartet), I find myself especially taken with the posthumously published Prelude (its part-writing discreetly peppered with false relations), but both the Romance and Elegy come off beautifully, too.

Production values (courtesy of Resonus’s founder Adam Binks) are all one could desire. In other words, if you missed out on this delectable release first time round, you’ve no excuse now.