Desbruslais’s tone is extraordinarily rich, as can be heard by the verve with which he plays his instruments – the piccolo trumpet in the seven-movement concertino Skyspace (2012) by one of the composers-of-the-moment, Deborah Pritchard (b1977), the flugelhorn in the Andante of McCabe’s La primavera (2012) – and the various mutes and tonguings each composer requires. Pritchard, whose violin concerto Wall of Water was premiered in London last October, has ‘a synaesthetic approach to composition’, vividly illustrated in Skyspace’s movement titles as they flit by, such as ‘Aurum Resonance’, ‘Light Iridescent’, ‘Opaque’ and the concluding ‘Cerulean’.

Robert Saxton’s Psalm: A Song of Ascents (1992) is effectively his first trumpet concerto, a single-span ‘musical voyage’ with resonances of his Jewish heritage. His second is the splendid Shakespeare Scenes (2013), which switches back through some of the most memorable of the Bard’s inventions: Puck’s putting a girdle round the world – evoked also in Henze’s Eighth Symphony – as well as Falstaff, Lear’s heath and Prospero’s magic island. Best of all, though, is McCabe’s La primavera, a paean to spring’s ‘exuberance and vitality of burgeoning new growth’ which takes in a homage to Miles Davis and, in the finale, ‘Quick’, a veiled tableau vivant of the London Olympics. The concluding held note for the trumpet unaccompanied is just one sign of his consummate mastery. A hugely enjoyable disc, strongly recommended. Guy