We are realising more and more how key a figure Sir Frederick Ashton was for British ballet. Not just as a choreographer but also as a Diaghilevian sponsor of memorable new ballet scores. I cannot say that John Lanchbery’s The Tales of Beatrix Potter is one of them, so a 10-minute excerpt is just right, with all the vivacious bits included. Lennox Berkeley’s The Judgement of Paris is real ballet music and winningly scored but the melodic invention is less distinctive. The Lambert scores are another matter. His engaging arrangement ‘for full 18th century orchestra’ of four Scarlatti sonatas for Marie Rambert was no mean task, yet he managed to retain much of the character of the originals.

Lambert’s masterpiece, Apparitions is full of marvellous ideas and themes: just sample the Offenbachian Galop (track 16) followed by ‘Elegy No 2’, ‘Evening Bells’ and ‘Carillon’ to discover how effectively this all fits together. The melodramatic finale, based on Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No 3 and Venezia, is superbly histrionic. All this music is splendidly played and the recording, as usual in this series, is first class in every way. No balletomane should miss this disc.