Anthony Burton, in his helpful note for the second of these two initial discs in the Berkeley Edition, draws illuminating parallels between the careers of father and son, Lennox and Michael, most significantly in their approach to their art. As he says, both of them occupy the middle ground between conservatism and the avant-garde, each of them tending towards greater astringency and toughness of argument in their later works.

Where the first of the two discs tends to highlight the contrasts between father and son, with two of Lennox Berkeley’s early works set against later, more astringent works by Michael, the second disc brings out their similarities more clearly, with concertante works for oboe by both of them set side by side. Lennox’s Sinfonia Concertante of 1972/3 is put next to Michael’s Oboe Concerto of only four years later, both written for the sadly short-lived Janet Craxton, and here warmly played by Nicholas Daniel with full, rich tone.

On the first disc both the Symphony No 1 of 1940 and the Serenade of 1938-39 are among Lennox Berkeley’s warmest and most approachable works. The Serenade in four compact movements is carefree until the final Lento, which touches deeper emotions. The First Symphony is far more ambitious, almost half-an-hour long, yet with its neo-classical elements it hardly reflects the tensions of the wartime period when it was written, with echoes of Sibelius’s symphonic techniques lightly worn.

The two works by Michael Berkeley on the first disc are far tougher. The Horn Concerto of 1984, revised 10 years later, is gritty and uncompromising in two powerful movements, quite different in tone from his earlier music. It makes an immediate emotional impact with the intensely energetic first movement giving way to the spacious, deeply thoughtful slow finale. The soloist, David Pyatt, magnetically brings out the logic of the piece, with Richard Hickox and the orchestra giving powerful support. Coronach is a lament for string orchestra, dating from four years later, building up impressively in the manner of a funeral dirge, with a quotation from the Scottish ballad, The Bonny Earl of Moray.

On the second disc the two works with oboe form the centrepiece. In Lennox Berkeley’s Sinfonia Concertante the first two of the five movements are linked by using the same material, while the third and fourth, ‘Aria’ and ‘Canzonetta’, bring a relaxation before the vigorous finale, with a cadenza in the middle and a thoughtful passage before the strongly rhythmic coda. Next to that late work by the father, Michael Berkeley’s Concerto for oboe and strings of 1976-77 seems all the more warmly conservative, with two substantial slow movements framing a brief central Scherzo. One notes the occasional echo of popular music and the writing for the strings is often sensuous, not least in the finale, entitled ‘Elegy in memoriam Benjamin Britten’, written within months of the death of Britten, Michael’s godfather.

Lennox Berkeley’s Symphony No 3, written in 1968-69 is in a single compressed movement divided into three sections. It represents the father’s late style at its most striking, dark and compressed in the first section, with rapidly contrasting motifs, before a brief slow central section leads to a rather more extrovert finale with galloping 6/8 rhythms and a brassy conclusion.

The disc is rounded off impressively with Michael Berkeley’s Secret Garden of 1997, in which stuttering brass fanfares at the start create what the composer describes as a wall of sound. The long central section with fascinating textures and occasional sensuous moments then aims to reflect the work’s title, before the piece is rounded off with the final wall of sound, just as a secret garden is enclosed by walls. The coda brings a warm echo of the great horn theme in Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, reflecting not only the love of both men for that work but its association with Sir Colin Davis. It was Davis who conducted the first performance of Secret Garden to mark the 50th anniversary of the Oxford University Press music department. As on the first disc Richard Hickox and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales give powerfully committed performances, warmly and fully recorded. Edward Greenfield