It doesn’t matter that Steven Isserlis has recorded Bloch’s Schlemo and Bridge’s Oration before – these new performances are utterly compelling and deserve the widest possible audience. The Bloch is a favourite with cellists and listeners alike and its ardent romanticism and celebration of Jewish culture has a fervent advocate in Isserlis. Bridge’s Oration is a superbly crafted work that should be better known. It calls to mind other neglected orchestral canvases of the period such as Grainger’s The Warriors and Holst’s Egdon Heath and looks forward to that outpouring of his student, Britten – the War Requiem.

Isserlis evokes the drama and futility of war with an amazing range of tone colour. Noting that Bloch (a Jew) and Bridge (a pacifist) responded to human suffering in different ways,  Isserlis offers his own imagined ‘program’ for each work. Whether or not you find that helpful, the quality of the playing is not in doubt and Hugh Wolff directs the DSOB with passion and empathy.

To conclude we get The Loneliest Wilderness by composer pianist Stephen Hough. Based on a poem by Herbert Read, this concerto (originally conceived for bassoon) evinces a very English sensibility that is a good match with the...