The viola, with its plangent tone, subtle sonority and lyrical qualities, is often overshadowed by its more brilliant-sounding sibling, the violin.

An accomplished violist himself, Frank Bridge wrote little solo music for this instrument; only the Pensiero and Allegro appassionato were published in his lifetime, the other works on this disc being the composer’s arrangements of some of his violin pieces.

Similarly, Delius’s Third Violin Sonata is heard here in an effective arrangement by the celebrated violist Lionel Tertis, the dedicatee of Bliss’s expressive Viola Sonata.

“A violist of the highest calibre”. Yuri Bashmet