Sir Malcolm Arnold was a big fan of the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble and he wrote his Second Brass Quintet after a request from the group’s founder Bryan Allen for “a short second-half opener”. Premiered at the 1988 Cheltenham Festival, it’s a delectably idiomatic affair, whose three movements clock in at just over five and a half minutes – less than half the duration of its better-known predecessor. Long since acknowledged as a classic of the genre, the First Quintet (composed for the New York Brass Quintet in 1961) combines crowd-pleasing melodic appeal (both outer movements will have you grinning from ear to ear), depth of expression (try the cloud-hung central Chaconne) and meticulous craftsmanship (as a former principal trumpet with the LPO, Arnold knew everything there was to know about the brass family).

The present generous programme culminates with the uncompromising yet gripping Symphony that Arnold fashioned for the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble in 1979. Current and former FAB members team up for a dazzling display that easily matches the PJBE’s own mesmeric premiere recording (reissued on Decca’s British Music Collection and – more recently – Vol 1 of the same company’s lavish Arnold Edition). Elsewhere, four solo Fantasies (for trumpet, horn, trombone and tuba) are interspersed with the three Little Suites (originally for brass band but arranged here for brass quintet by trumpeter Simon Lenton), and the disc kicks off with the playful Fanfare for two trumpets that Arnold penned to mark the 70th birthday of Louis Armstrong (the legend who inspired him to become a musician in the first place).

These immaculately prepared, fervent performances have been vividly and spaciously captured by the Nimbus production crew, making this a genuine tonic for Arnoldians and brass-heads alike.