The curtain-raiser somewhat eclipses the main event in this instance. Why we don’t hear more of Bartók’s Four Orchestral Pieces I cannot imagine – their relative compactness belies a breadth and depth and drama that calls to mind Berg’s contemporaneous Three Orchestral Pieces. But we are in the shadows of Bartók’s operatic masterpiece Duke Bluebeard’s Castle here and as the first of the pieces – Preludio – begins to unfold we might be discovering what lies behind the eighth door of the Duke’s forever home.

This is a lush, fantastical, heart-achingly beautiful landscape shot through with ineffable sadness. The dark side of Bartók’s imagination. The explosive shock of the Scherzo is as unexpected as it is unforgiving (its violence suggestive of that lovelorn Mandarin), the hypnotic night waltz (Intermezzo) is deeply unsettling, and the concluding Funeral March comes close to out-Mahlering Mahler in its intensity. There would seem to be no way out of the darkness.

Karina Canellakis (who wrote the detailed – and impassioned – booklet notes) clearly relates to the ethos of these pieces and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (impressively engineered by the Pentatone team) paint the soundscapes with both finesse and fire.

I think with the Concerto for Orchestra the key challenge for interpreters lies with striking a convincing balance between the startlingly inventive orchestral showpiece we know it to be and the symphonic drama we want it to be. Canellakis perhaps weighs too heavily on the former, seemingly prioritising form over characterisation. There is atmosphere in the opening pages – though not the kind of crepuscular effect you get from Susanna Mälkki and the Helsinki Philharmonic in their impressive account from a couple of years back (BIS, 12/21). Also those precipitous outbursts, both in the first movement and the searing Elegie, feel slightly cosmetic. I just don’t feel their emotional urgency.

The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic are never less than proficient in fulfilling Bartók’s demands – the ‘lake of tears’ limpid and beautiful at the start of the Elegie – but for all the elegance and virtuosity of the playing I want more of Bartók’s humour and earthiness. This feels very urbane. The Intermezzo’s rude ‘interruption’ sounds very ‘literal’, po faced; the finale, exciting to a point, hardly rips from the page.

Good to hear the Four Pieces done so well but there are better and more emotive accounts of the Concerto for Orchestra out there.