Having proved himself an engaging Mozartian with his previous release (a collection of arias and overtures with Elizabeth Watts and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra – Linn, 7/15), Christian Baldini here displays his expertise in modernist and contemporary fare. The choice of unedited live performances from the past decade over studio polish reflects the young Argentine-Italian conductor’s response to the lengthy exile from concert life during the pandemic. Indeed, the dialectic of precise notation and improvisatory procedures that characterises Lutosławski's Chain pieces gains fresh resonance in this up-to-date context. Famously written for a young Anne-Sophie Mutter, Chain 2 (the album’s most recent performance, from 2019) receives a dramatically vivid interpretation from the Geneva-based violinist Maximilian Haft, his ‘clean’, straight tone plying its way sensitively through the orchestral labyrinth.

Even more riveting is the stamp Miranda Cuckson impresses on one of Ligeti’s most familiar and beloved scores (performed in 2018). Like Baldini an adventurous champion of new music, she even trails away from the Ligeti/Gawriloff cadenza in the final movement into one of her own invention. It defies belief that Cuckson had never previously played the Concerto, so convincing is she with Ligeti’s admixture of idioms and allusions, particularly in the second movement. That some blemishes from the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra are left untouched here enhances the visceral appeal of the playing. A university orchestra in California known for its commitment to contemporary repertoire, the ensemble best shows its mettle in a sensuous, detailed yet aptly raucous rendition of Amériques (here in Varèse’s ‘reduced’ version from 1927).

Music director of the orchestra since 2009, Baldini combines his roles as conductor and composer on the disc’s opening track, Elapsing Twilight Shades, taken from an award concert performance in 2012 leading the Munich Radio Orchestra. His own booklet notes describe the piece as an experiment in presenting material from multiple perspectives but the chief impression it leaves is of Baldini’s omnivorous, intelligent, hyper-literate ear and flair for detail.