The ever-impressive and endlessly intrepid Albion Records celebrates Vaughan Williams’ 150th birthday with a collection of rediscovered works by the British master – a remarkable five world premiere recordings – and a delightful choral arrangement of one of his acknowledged masterpieces for strings.

First out of the traps is Pan’s Anniversary, a masque by the Jacobean playwright Ben Jonson that would have originally featured musicians costumed as priests of Pan with King James I hailed as the goatish god himself (the mind boggles). In 1905 it was adapted for the Shakespeare Birthday Celebration at Stratford-upon-Avon with Vaughan Williams (“a very able and rising young man”) commissioned to set the choral and dance sections to music. It seems that he was so pressed for time that he roped in his friend Gustav Holst to work up some of the dance arrangements. 

Set in ancient Arcadia, an aged shepherd encourages a trio of nymphs to adorn Pan’s altar with flowers and lead a series of choral hymns and rustic dances. The rites, however, are repeatedly interrupted by a rather self-important and garrulous Fencer with...