I was totally smitten by John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic’s recording of Antheil’s Fourth and Fifth symphonies (6/17) and this new instalment is just as engaging. Here again, Storgårds takes a notably different tack from Hugh Wolff, who put a high value on characterisation and vigorous dramatic trajectory in his pioneering series for CPO. Instead, Storgårds seizes upon the odd strands seemingly left behind from Antheil’s experimental, ‘bad boy’ days, picking out unusual colours, angular countermelodies and surprising harmonic twists.

Pacing is a crucial component for Storgårds, who generally favours broader tempos than Wolff, thus providing unexpected gravitas while also allowing for greater illumination of detail. Listen, say, to the way he shines a light on the bassoons’ odd interjections at 2'46" in the first movement of the Third Symphony, or to how his slower tempo and careful attention to orchestral balance – bringing out a subtle smear of dissonance – at 7'32" in the opening movement of the Sixth make the bombastic march sound as much like Ives as Shostakovich. Indeed, Storgårds’s punctiliousness makes me believe that Antheil was inspired by Prokofiev and Shostakovich rather than merely cribbing shamelessly from them.

Only in the Third’s lovely Andante, with its alternation of homespun Americana and Mahlerian nocturne, is Storgårds noticeably brisker than Wolff, oiling the rapidly shifting moods so they glide in a magical, dreamlike fashion. And if Storgårds is too straitlaced in the Milhaud-esque Archipelago – Wolff’s account is truly madcap, like the soundtrack to a zany cartoon – he and the BBC Philharmonic have loads of fun in the Hot-Time Dance, with its faint echoes of Enescu’s First Romanian Rhapsody, then dote luxuriously on the Ravelian Spectre of the Rose Waltz, with its shimmering colours and slippery harmonies. Very strongly recommended.