On track: Cinderella comes in from the cold

Violists have had it tough. Little wonder Lionel Tertis, an Englishman who inspired many contemporary composers to write for his instrument, and who was a self-confessed "propagandist", titled his autobiography Cinderella No More.

It is rare to hear a viola soloist on the concert stage, but you can enjoy some transcendent repertoire on a CD by the English violist Helen Callus, playing with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under conductor Marc Taddei.

Callus' first ASV collection, Portrait of the Viola, featuring chamber music by Rebecca Clarke and Pamela Harrison, was praised for its "communicative ardour" and "somnolent abandon". Neither of these virtues has dimmed in her second outing for the label, a collection of four works for viola and orchestra.

The Walton Concerto is the most celebrated. Premiered in 1929, with Paul Hindemith as soloist, this is a sparkler, revealing that a few continental spices had drifted over the channel into the pastoral climes of English music.

Brilliantly scored, it becomes a showpiece for soloist, orchestra and conductor, especially as they manoeuvre the twists and turns of its middle movement.

The other concerto is from York Bowen (1884-1961), a composer only now coming into his own. There is the glow of youth in its theatrical gestures and the searching romanticism of its Andante cantabile that Callus unfolds, phrase by melting phrase. The Finale's new, wistful cadenza is contributed by the soloist herself.

One is so easily captured by the three short movements of Vaughan Williams' Suite for Viola and Orchestra that one wishes all eight had been included. Certainly eight minutes pass all too quickly, and the final Christmas Dance, a gem of bubbling rusticity, remains on high rotate in my player.

One work is new to me: Herbert Howells' Elegy which, like Elgar's Cello Concerto, is a response to the horrors of World War I.

You can hear it in the emotional gravitas of Callus' opening solo, the eloquence of the string quartet and massive orchestral chords, straight out of Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia, all beautifully captured by producer Wayne Laird.

A lovely recording, whose burnished sonorities could well be solace in the grey and grim days ahead.

* Walton, Viola Concerto (ASV DCA 1181, through Ode Records)