Tucked away on this superbly planned disc sits a hidden gem, a tiny carol called This Christmas Night, finally receiving its premiere recording. It deserves to be sung by choirs up and down the land and indeed, its haunting simplicity would be perfectly positioned, for instance, within the annual Christmas Eve service from King’s, Cambridge. We hardly ever think of Malcolm Arnold as a composer of choral music but this enterprising collection by the London Choral Sinfonia and masterminded by Michael Waldron brings to light a range of his vocal music to prove just what a versatile composer he was. Apart from two eloquent part-songs written when he was just a 17-year-old student, the other choral works were all written to commission or for special occasions; the carol already mentioned was requested in 1967 by The Daily Telegraph as a setting of words by Mary Wilson, so the premiere on December 22 that year was given in 10 Downing Street by invitation of her husband, the Prime Minister – those were the days!

The centenary celebrations of Arnold’s birth in 2021 were doubtless partly obscured by the pandemic and so this disc is something of a catch-up cornucopia in including some rare orchestral works alongside the choral. The opening of the 1954 Organ Concerto as recorded by James Orford at St John the Evangelist, Islington, is a sonic spectacular. High-octane trumpets supported by strings and percussion clothe the soloist in a terracing of fanfares and processions suggestive of a great ceremony. In complete contrast, the gentle slow movement is redolent of the sleepy nostalgia of an afternoon voluntary in a summer country church. The finale’s fugal fun rounds off a concise score which, while difficult perhaps to slot into concert programmes, finds an ideal home here. On the other hand, the bracing and beautiful Concerto for two violins and strings commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin in 1962 – an exhilarating partnership here from Jack Liebeck and Alexander Sitkovetsky – deserves a much higher profile in the chamber-orchestral repertoire.

At the heart of the collection comes The John Clare Cantata, which William Glock commissioned for the 1955 Dartington Summer School. It seems poignant that Arnold should select poems by John Clare – also, like him, from Northampton and a poet who encountered severe mental problems, as did the composer. The music is ravishingly scored for mixed choir and piano duet – played here with sensitive rapture by Edward Picton-Tubervill and Cameron Richardson-Eames – and movingly conveys the year’s revolving cycle from winter to winter. Also worthy of note is a Walter Hussey commission for St Matthew’s, Northampton, from the local boy in 1950: Psalm 150 for choir and organ, where Arnold rises above a dark period mentally to write a work of joy and celebration. And finally there has to be the warmest welcome for a stunning arrangement by Owain Park of The Padstow Lifeboat, an Arnold favourite which, while written brilliantly for brass band in 1967, now glows with refulgent brass, strings, organ and percussion – all bells and whistles, if not literally so – to send us away with joyful smiles on all faces.