I suppose it’s clarinettists seeking something new and light-hearted and others with a special fondness for the instrument, who will be most drawn to this CD. I say ‘new’ since even Elgar’s ‘Canto popolare: In Moonlight’ from In the South will not be widely familiar in the version here. Neither will the re- warding selection of works by Frederick Kell (1851-1950), father of eminent British clarinettist Reginald, while much of the rest of the programme is music relatively recently composed or arranged.

Gavin Sutherland, conductor of many admirable British light music CDs and accompanist here, gets the programme off to the best possible start with his own delightful Lounge Suite. It offers varied opportunities for Verity Butler to show off her instrument’s versatility and has a final jazz-tinted movement ‘Loose Mints’ that deserves wider currency. In much the same delightful mood is Terence Greaves’s Clarinet Cakewalk, and there are further rhythmic delights in Philip Lane’s delightful Three Spanish Dances. Among the more reflective fare, the Elgar stands out.

The one track that I don’t think works is the medley of three British popular songs of the late-1930s. Their appeal remains too much in the accompaniments, with clarinet failing to add the soothing note that voice and words do. On the other hand Gavin Sutherland’s arrangement (apparently made during the recording sessions) of Jack Strachey’s In Party Mood works quite splendidly and should certainly be taken up by clarinettists elsewhere.