Well over 20 years have elapsed since Bryden Thomson’s pioneering Chandos survey with the Ulster Orchestra of the music of Sir Hamilton Harty (now only available as a mid-price three-CD set), so it’s high time we had new recordings of such appealing repertoire.

Harty wrote his Piano Concerto in 1922 and gave the first performance the following year with Beecham at the helm of the Hallé Orchestra (of which Harty had himself recently been appointed principal conductor). Unashamedly indebted to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov (the finale even boasts a near-crib from the latter’s Second Concerto), it’s a thoroughly endearing, red-blooded affair, but not without its occasional longueurs.

Or at least that’s what I had thought up until now. Peter Donohoe and Takuo Yuasa drive a far more propulsive (and, it must be said, purposeful) course through both outer movements than do Malcolm Binns and Thomson, their performance overall lasting just under half an hour (a sizeable seven and a half minutes swifter than their Chandos rivals). The piano sometimes sounds a little tired but Donohoe’s bravura is frequently jaw-dropping and there’s no lack of enthusiasm or sensitivity about the orchestral support. A refreshing and instructive display.

The Concerto is preceded by a similarly mobile, mostly spick-and-span account of Harty’s delightful A Comedy Overture of 1906 (with perhaps rather less of a mischievous twinkle in its eye than Thomson’s affectionate rendering) and what I presume to be the first commercial recording of the Fantasy Scenes (from an Eastern Romance). These appeared in 1919 and comprise four fetching vignettes which nod appreciatively towards the likes of Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Balakirev. I can report that Yuasa and company do them proud. Nor can there be any major grumbles about the recording, which is commendably truthful (if not quite as tangible as those demonstration-worthy early digital Chandos productions). Altogether a most enjoyable release and well worth its modest asking price.