Each of these works was commissioned by the Buffalo Philharmonic, and each showcases the excellence of the orchestra and the absorbing narratives that are a hallmark of JoAnn Falletta’s style.

Wang Jie’s dazzling The Winter that United Us was inspired by ‘the warm orange color of Kleinhans’ interior’ – the orchestra’s home. Gifted to the orchestra and conductor to celebrate the city of Buffalo, it begins with a tease from Also sprach Zarathustra before finding itself along a delicious Danubian rivulet that eventually closes with a Wagnerian roar. Kenneth Fuchs’s Point of Tranquility begins with an optimistic fanfare leading to a wonderful Impressionist flourish in a radiant, peaceful mood; the effect is of an exhilarating spiral like one of Morris Louis’s magnetic Color Field paintings that inspired the music. Russell Platt’s relentlessly intriguing Symphony was inspired by the paintings of the early American modernist Clyfford Still at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Gallery, transforming their intense, emotional lines and dark colours into vivid orchestral strokes that particularly show off the woodwinds and brass. The second movement, ‘Chaconne’, is an unstoppable tour de force. The three movements of Randall Svane’s gentle Oboe Concerto create a continuous harmonic fabric. The orchestra’s principal oboe, Henry Ward, is at his finest in the slow movement’s gorgeous core and the third’s magical trilling.

The sound captures the warmth and wide soundstage of the hall in audiophile splendour, with awesome drum thumps, and a ‘you are there’ sense of acoustical space.