The First Sonata is a passionate, deeply personal outpouring, essayed here with rapt understanding and tender intimacy. The rival Chandos performance may exhibit rather more in the way of commanding projection and urgent expression, but these newcomers' keen poetic instincts are never in doubt. Both the Legend and Ballad date from the First World War years (of the broodingly elegiac Legend – much liked by Vaughan Williams, apparently – Bax later recalled to violinist May Harrison that it 'came straight out of the horror of that time'), whereas the single-movement Sonata in G minor is an amiable, confidently argued student effort from November 1901. Again, Gibbs and Wu lend consistently idiomatic and warm-hearted advocacy to this material. A very appealing collection, in short, and a mandatory purchase for confirmed Baxians.