In his booklet essay, David Hackbridge Johnson writes that Sheppard, “in the pieces on this disc I have followed the Muse down the winding stairway to the past.” That sense of time and history (and poetry) is manifest throughout this multifaceted record of an artistic collaboration and friendship over decades with one of the finest living exponents of the violin and viola. Hackbridge Johnson, no mean violinist himself, composed all the pieces in the past six years; in the case of the sets of preludes, for specific instruments with long pedigrees—the “Charles II” violin made by an unnamed maker in 1664, and England’s oldest viola, made by Jacob Rayman in 1641.

The sense of history pervades the compositions themselves, whether in Disused Stations for viola (2025), vivid depictions of “Beeches Halt,” “Brill,” and the Dickensian-sounding “Evergreen Junction,” once eulogised by Betjeman, only one of which adapted to modern life; the solo violin variation set on a prelude by the elusive “Mr Simons” (2021); or the pocket-operatic trajectory of Will Rosin of Wapping (2024), also for violin, with the composer entertaining us with his range of voices and East End accents declaiming the relevant superscripted extracts from Tatler.

Hackbridge Johnson’s facility for turning a good and evocative tune has been heard before on albums of his piano music (Steinway & Sons, 2022) and symphonies (Toccata Classics, 2017 and 2018). It is no less evident here, as the titular work, A Pocketful of Tunes (2023), affirms in full, drawing inspiration from the composer’s home district of Tooting in south London and John Playford’s 1651 The Dancing Master. There is a sense of place as well in the Seven Versets for viola (2020)—in my view the finest set here, also inspired by the Jacob Rayman instrument—and the musical postcard Alleyway, Pastoral, River Falls (2023), inspired by a drawing Sheppard Skærved sent him.

This is a quietly tremendous album, beautifully played and recorded (by Adaq Khan), a testament to creative friendships between musicians and their instruments transcending space and time.