'I’m not an academically trained composer/musician’, writes Mark John McEncroe in this new Navona two-disc set (the fourth devoted to his music), and ‘as such it’s never been my aim to further the theoretical, intellectual or technical boundaries of music.’ That much is certain from even the most casual acquaintance with the 10 orchestral works – five per disc – collected here, all played with commendable enthusiasm by the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra under Anthony Armore. Born in Australia, McEncroe has had a varied career, including label manager (for EMI) and professional chef, but composition appears to be his main occupation now.

‘My Symphonic Poems – Orchestral Images’ is the album’s title and the latter part best describes what their composer himself calls ‘musical paintings’. There is little genuinely symphonic development in any of them; they are tone poems (none the worse for that), symphonic only in the American sense of being written for a symphony orchestra. (So far as I can determine, all the orchestrations are by the Australian-born, Croatian-resident Mark J Saliba.) The most effective is That Old Indian Summer, whose charming, brief musical discourse matches the quirky title.

Sadly, this is the exception. Too often, unsupported melodic lines with rudimentary harmonisation amble aimlessly with little sense of musical progression. Havergal Brian’s works are sometimes castigated as being rhythmically turgid – this isn’t true, but in comparison to McEncroe’s they are the height of pulsating syncopation! This is especially acute in the longer pieces – A Celebration of the Natural World and An Early Autumn Morning, which wend their enervating way for 17 and 21 minutes respectively – but is also apparent in the shorter pieces, such as A Pageant at the Country Fair (which, if describing an actual event, must have been excruciatingly dull) or Echoes from a Haunted Past. Not a collection I shall return to.