Fool’s Paradise, for string orchestra, evolved from a piano trio by Joby Talbot about which we are told relatively little in the booklet. It is a hauntingly effective score in four parts, in many ways even finer than Alice (if less diverse in scoring). Part 1 opens with a fragile violin solo, with delicate piano backing and a cello joining in later ready to lead to Part 2, which soon becomes more expansive in every way and rhythmically increasingly volatile. Part 3 is a soliloquy, obviously derived from the opening section with its changing rhythms and tempi but becoming increasingly passionate. The closing, Part 4, sums up the whole, an amalgam of passion and serenity, with the piano having the last word.

But it is his ballet suite Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that has made the composer’s name. He shows himself able to create danceable textures while providing a narrative flow in his music, he can create distinct musical characterisation for his principal characters, and he has a melodic gift which regularly blossoms. He also shows a piquant feeling for orchestral colour and uses a wide range of subtle percussion effects.

Of the eight excerpts from Alice in Wonderland, the ‘Prologue’ immediately introduces the minimalist style he usually favours but there is a contrasting lyrical strain too. ‘The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’ brings in a hint of burlesque but the portrait of ‘Alice Alone’ is wistfully, nostalgically romantic. ‘The Croquet Match’ introduces the Queen with what the composer calls a scordatura theme, and various characters then appear, including the Knave who dances with Alice, and the Cheshire Cat, who is depicted in the ‘purring flutes and undulating lines of the high woodwinds’.

It is the White Rabbit who sets up the Courtroom for the Knave’s trial with a fanfare and the Queen then dances in to a catchy tango (deliciously scored). Alice is finally drawn to the ‘The Flower Garden’, which is melodically the highlight of the ballet. Its striking main theme gets more boisterous (underlined by a bass tuba) when Alice dances a lively pas de deux with the Knave, before the impressive closing climax. This is music which, when played as sympatheically as it is here, stands up well on its own, even without the delights of the Opus Arte DVD.