If a new Walton release can finally put paid to the notion that his music somehow 'went off' after his move to the Italian island of Ischia in 1956, then this must be it. And the performances of these late-ish works are on a level that have you wishing that the composer had lived to hear them.

The Symphony No. 2 gets a performance of élan from Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Edward Gardner directs a superbly perceptive account of Walton's Second Symphony, exhilarating in its purposeful thrust…make no mistake: with cracking playing from the BBC SO, Gardner's is a conspicuously insightful reading of this underrated score…a gem of a disc.

[These issues] are on balance the greatest recorded performances of these three demonstrable masterpieces it has been my pleasure to hear…there is nothing egotistical in these splendid interpretations, and the result is a set of consistently satisfying performances of the highest musical grasp and understanding. I cannot imagine anything finer than these.

from [Watkins's] very first entry it’s clear that his is going to be a thoughtful interpretation, full of beautiful tone in the introspective first movement, but also impressively virtuosic in the second...in Gardner’s hands [The Second] comes across as a completely convincing symphonic statement. The playing is unfailingly committed and colourful, with a sensationally scintillating account of the slow movement being a particular highlight for me.

Lavishly reproduced in surround sound, these accounts of three of Walton’s later, comparatively neglected works are as superbly thought out as they are atmospherically recorded...The heartwarming Cello Concerto finds a masterly exponent in Watkins.