Władysław Z˙elen´ski’s overture In the Tatras (1870) is still a popular concert item in Poland and Aleksander Zarzycki’s Mazurka in G can be heard on a delightful 1940 recording by the violinist Ossy Renardi. For those who, like me, know nothing else of these Polish composers, Adrian Thomas’s informative booklet tells us that both men were significant figures in the development of musical education in Warsaw. Zarzycki (1834 95) was the first director of the Warsaw Music Society and then of the city’s Music Institute. Z˙elen´ski (1837-1921) succeeded him before moving to Kraków in a similar post.

Zarzycki’s Grande Polonaise is a jolly Weber-cum-Chopin crowd pleaser. His later two-movement concerto, dedicated to Nikolai Rubinstein, dates from 1860. No first movement would seem to exist, though it feels as though there should be one, and the work begins ‘as if in mid-sentence’ (Thomas) with an Andante – a rather undistinguished one at that – before the krakowiak-like second movement. The unpromising opening material gives way to a heart-easing secondary subject.

Z˙elen´ski’s E flat major Concerto (1903) is the more interesting work. The first and last movements are based on sprightly dance forms, the second is a theme and variations, while all three show the composer’s predilection for thematic counterpoint. The soloist is kept busy throughout. And who better to do the business than that alchemist among keyboard players, Jonathan Plowright, who has that rare ability to turn second-rate music into masterpieces (viz, inter alia, his recordings of Stojowski’s concertos in the same series – 6/02)? Buy the disc for the Z˙elen´ski finale alone. A word, too, about his conductor Łukasz Borowicz who catches spot-on every tricky twist and turn and inspires the BBC Scottish players in their cracking accompaniment. We’ll be hearing a lot more of him.