Kalevi Aho has over 40 concertos to his credit, for every standard orchestral instrument except piccolo, bass trombone, celesta and organ (the last-named, however, is the solo in his concertante Eighth Symphony, 3/95). The cor anglais shares a concerto with the harp, and there are others for alto flute, E flat clarinet (both 2021), contrabassoon (7/07), baritone horn (2022), theremin (11/14), kantele (2023) and accordion (2016; 2019). That for guitar was written for Ismo Eskelinen in 2018.

Aho’s booklet note might mislead the casual reader into thinking this the first time he had composed for the instrument, but it actually features in three earlier works, a quartet (1982), the virtuosic Solo XI (2013) and a Partita with cello (2016); there is a sonata, too (2019). Aho’s guitar-writing is, therefore, well conceived and, for a non-player, idiomatically laid out, and beautifully balanced with the accompanying chamber orchestra. Its seven sections (playing continuously) share some common thematic material and feel a little like a set of variations, building to a climax in the penultimate Presto before dying away calmly in the Epilogue. Eskelinen seems entirely at one with the work, his touch nimble and clean; clearly a fine player. The Lapland Chamber Orchestra accompany sensitively.

Five of their number combine for the Horn Quintet (2019), a strong, virile work in four movements, though the opening pair – a Misterioso and Con moto – are conjoined more like an introduction and first movement proper. Horn player Ilkka Puputti, who premiered Solo X, is undeniably first among equals here, but all four string players contribute to what is a real dialogue.

In addition to his enormous catalogue of 18 symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber and instrumental works, Aho is an accomplished orchestrator (cf Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, 6/87, 10/03) and completer of the incomplete, not least Sibelius’s part-destroyed Karelia music (4/98), Klami’s ballet Pyrörteitä (7/04), and here, perhaps the ne plus ultra of the unfinished, Contrapunctus XIV from The Art of Fugue. Aho created it for organist Jan Lehtola in 2011, and made this fine string-orchestral version shortly after. It is splendidly played, and BIS’s sound is, well, BIS’s sound, so you know how excellent that is!