There’s so much British music around this summer, but here’s some you won’t have heard unless you are a Holst anorak. The Cotswold Symphony was written not long after his student days, and has echoes of Elgar and Schumann. But if its outer movements are breezily derivative, its central Elegy is much nobler, with a massive brass chorale. Also recorded by the Ulster Orchestra under JoAnn Falletta’s sympathetic direction is the even earlier Walt Whitman Overture, and the appealing Japanese Suite — full of yearning bitonality and subtle instrumental colours. Good performances, despite a few rough string moments.
(Naxos; out now)