Here is another attractive offering in CPO’s valuable Andriessen survey that pairs a symphony with shorter orchestral works: shorter, but not necessarily lighter, because the symphonies themselves steer away from heavyweight, philosophically charged issues. Like the Second in last year’s Vol 2 (3/14), Andriessen’s Third (1946) is essentially a genial affair – far more so than, say, Vaughan Williams’s Sixth, a near-contemporary whose melodic, harmonic and gestural language it nevertheless in several respects resembles. Once again, the movement titles – here Overture, Sonata, Sarabande and Fugue – suggest the suite more than the symphony. Emotionally, too, there is no attempt to deal with contemporary neuroses and little or nothing that could plausibly be linked to the aftermath of war (though arguably relief and a wish to reaffirm besmirched values could be read into its benign progress). Still, this is expertly crafted music – the fugue is particularly resourceful – which could never be accused of triviality. Within its own narrow frame of reference, the only major criticism that could be levelled at it is that it has a rather routine conclusion.

Sixteen years on, the three-movement Symphonie concertante is in some ways more symphonic than the symphony itself. Notwithstanding the title, there are no solo instruments involved; rather, different orchestral sub-groupings are pitted against one another. Once again, the musical language is somewhat academic and circumspect. The variations of the middle movement directly invoke 18th-century suite models but without seeking to derive any message or dramatic tension from the confrontation of old and new.

The Overture Chantecler (1972) invokes Edmond Rostand’s play of that name, in which a cockerel awakens its fellow farmyard animals and reminds them of the power of traditional ideals. Here may indeed reside a clue as to the direction of Andriessen’s artistic-moral compass, though the music itself remains unpretentious and curiously reluctant to display its true colours.