Rawsthorne’s centenary year gets off to a flying start with this valuable Naxos survey of his three symphonies. As on previous volumes within this series, David Lloyd-Jones directs with evident conviction, and he secures a consistently enthusiastic and spruce response from the Bournemouth SO.

Good as it is, Sir John Pritchard’s 1975 Lyrita account of the terse, immaculately scored First Symphony (1950) doesn’t quite match this new performance in terms of elegant proportion and thrusting purpose. I particularly like the extra hush and concentration Lloyd-Jones brings to the deeply-felt Lento slow movement.

As for its luminous and poignant successor, A Pastoral Symphony, of 1959, honours are more equally divided. Lloyd-Jones distils rather more in the way of gentle melancholy, whereas Nicholas Braithwaite and the LPO on Lyrita achieve the greater poise. Both sopranos make an eloquent showing in the concluding Andante – a bittersweet and delicate setting of a poem in praise of summer by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-47). (A shame, though, about the misreading of ‘pole’ instead of ‘pale’ on this newcomer.)

Norman Del Mar’s BBC SO version of the imposing Third (commissioned for the 1964 Cheltenham Festival) has done sterling service down the years – and the 1967 Kingsway Hall recording still packs an impressive punch. Lloyd-Jones fully matches Del Mar’s blazing commitment, tying up the symphonic threads to even more clinching effect in the finale (whose peaceful coda recalls material from the opening movement), while distilling every ounce of brooding atmosphere and forceful emotion from the stately tread of the second movement ‘Alla Sarabanda’ (one of the composer’s most powerful utterances).

A touch of rawness aside, the recording is hugely vivid, offering as it does a pretty much ideal combination of bite and amplitude, and the disc represents irresistible value for money. What are you waiting for?