It may be unfashionable to celebrate anything exclusively English, but Em Marshall — founder and artistic director of the English Music Festival — clearly has no qualms, and for four years has been on a crusade to revive forgotten gems of the English music repertoire. Last Friday, in the decidedly English pastoral setting of Dorchester Abbey, the BBC Concert Orchestra launched the fourth festival with a concert that abounded with curiosities.

Among the shorter pieces, William Alwyn’s Derby Day, described in the programme as being full of “lively hustle and bustle”, at times seemed a bit too frantic and disjointed, and is perhaps a candidate for being mothballed again now we’ve had a chance to hear it. Ernest John Moeran’s folk-inspired Lonely Waters, though, was a delightful miniature, its lyrical, haunting melancholy vividly evoking the spirit of Norfolk.

A highlight of the first half was Roger Quilter’s three-movement Serenade, here being given its first public performance for just over 100 years. This, Quilter’s only extended work, is a glorious piece, and conductor Gavin Sutherland ensured a stirring, upbeat realisation of its richly melodic score. The joyful outer movements contrast finely with a sublime Andante, notable for an exquisite oboe line that is taken up later by the horns.

Passion and drama were very much to the fore in Montague Phillips’s Piano Concerto No.1, which was last performed in 1912. Soloist David Owen Norris was full of his customary energy and zeal, handling the extended cadenzas with power and authority, and finishing with a cheeky flourish.The most eagerly-anticipated piece, arguably, was Yorke Bowen’s Symphony No.1, written in 1901 and never before performed in its entirety. This was another magnificent piece, which the BBC Concert Orchestra delivered with a fine appreciation of its lyricism and vitality, bringing the concert to a thrilling conclusion.