Sir Patrick Spens is an early work and evidently so little regarded that it has been lost to view from 1930, the year of its only known performance, until its recent rediscovery by Paul Spicer. Hymnus Paradisi is the composer’s most widely acknowledged masterpiece. And whereas the masterpiece is mystical in character and intensely personal in its origins, the other is robust and extrovert, speedy in its story-telling, pictorial and dramatic in style.

Hymnus Paradisi has been recorded well and relatively often. This performance is perhaps the most careful in its observance of the score’s many detailed directions. Choral and orchestral forces are well balanced and precise, with strong attack when that is wanted and well nourished tone for the searing lyricism, the tranquil beauty that is most characteristic. Clare Rutter sustains her long phrases and has the right consolatory warmth in her middle range, while tenor James Gilchrist sings with grace and fine diction. For all that, there is no difference between this and the two other recordings available so crucial as to constitute a superiority. If I have a personal preference it is for the deleted 1970 EMI recording under Willcocks with Heather Harper giving the most lovely account of the solo soprano part.

Choice may be influenced by the companion work: Vernon Handley has An English Mass, Richard Hickox A Kent Yeoman’s Wooing Song. Sir Patrick Spens, recorded now for the first time, is strong in its own merits. In this setting of the old Scots ballad Howells is at his most vigorously imaginative; it is difficult to understand the neglect. The very fact of such a life-affirming work is remarkable. War morale was at its lowest and Howells’s ill-health (which had prevented him fighting) became so bad that he had to relinquish his post at Salisbury Cathedral. You would never guess.