Why, you may rightly ask, has it taken fully 25 years for this set of Holst’s The Planets to see the light of day? Well, there can be few grumbles with Simon Rhodes’s full-blooded, intrepidly wide-ranging sound (emanating from Watford Town Hall), but I’m a good deal less persuaded about the merits and durability of the actual performance. Certainly, by the side of Vernon Handley’s magnificent interpretation with the same orchestra set down a just a few weeks later in October 1993 for ‘The Royal Philharmonic Collection’ on Tring International (7/94), Mike Batt’s reading emerges as a merely competent, somewhat flabby affair, by no means always devoid of a whiff of routine. In ‘Mars’ I quickly found myself craving the canny terracing of dynamics and sense of elemental power in reserve that make the Handley such a gripping experience. ‘Venus’ has plenty of lusciousness but is just a little wanting in concentration and silken poise, while ‘Jupiter’ is too heavy on its pins for my own tastes. Most damagingly, towards the end of ‘Neptune’ there are chronic problems of pitch between the women’s choir and orchestra, further exacerbated by Batt’s laboured tempo.

All in all, then, not a Planets to store away for future reference; better to stick with Boult, Sargent, Steinberg, Previn, Dutoit, Mackerras, Handley, Elder, Gardner … the list goes on and on. There’s a fill-up in the shape of Elgar’s D major Pomp and Circumstance March. Batt generates lots of bluster but rather less in the way of freshness of discovery, twinkling affection or songful dignity; both Andrew Davis (Chandos, 7/12) and Mark Elder (Hallé, 11/15) demonstrate exactly how it should be done.