In 1947 Brian explored J M Synge’s play Deirdre of the sorrows as an opera, but his intention was frustrated when it was discovered that Karl Rankl was already at work on the same scenario as his entry to the Arts Council Opera Competition for the Festival of Britain - of which in the event none of the nominally successful works were produced. Indeed. Rankl’s opera went completely unheard until 1995 when the performance of extracts revealed a glorious score.

Whether Brian would have been put off so easily had he realised that at that date there were already several previous settings of the same text it is difficult to say. As it was, Brian wrote an extended Vorspiel or Prelude to his unwritten opera which, completed in February 1948, became a work in its own right, the Sinfonia tragica - but it was not included as one of his numbered symphonies until 1967, after its first performance.

Sinfonia tragica - seeming much bigger in performance than its compact design suggests - is a work that has grown in stature over the years. I vividly remember listening to the broadcast of its first performance and how gripping and new it seemed then, an impression reinforced by the Lyrita recording. Now, hearing a live performance many years later, it was good to find how newly minted it seemed, my response unchanged.

Brian’s exposed lines - the opening a case in point - were confidently taken, the flute and trumpet remarkably good, the climaxes tremendous, the insistent tread of the tragedy given a bracing inexorable quality. The strings of the Royal Holloway Orchestra beautifully projected the soul-searching long cantilena for the tutti muted violins which Malcolm MacDonald rightly calls the ‘very heart of the symphony’.