Søren Nils Eichberg is composer-in-residence with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the first to hold the post. That he is there on merit is immediately confirmed by the opening pages of the Second Symphony (2010), placed first on the disc. Marked Chaotic, aggressive, it is immediately arresting and the mysterious string chorale that follows sets up potentially explosive contrast. The scrubbing unison strings return (surely with a nod to the second movement of Nielsen’s Fifth), and tension ratchets up as those lines transfer to woodwind over string pedal-points and palpitating timpani. Confrontation is in the air. Ultimately the intercutting of sections – more Stravinsky than Sibelius or Nielsen in principle – leaves that potential unfulfilled. For me it remains so right up to the end. Part of the problem is that the slow ‘glassy’ music – shades of Sallinen but more soft-centred – does not contribute as it might to an evolving drama, certainly not to one worthy of the aspirations of the Lao-Tzu-inspired title.

The First Symphony of 2005 takes its cue from the words of the Portuguese novelist José Saramago. Again one might query whether the music rises to the challenge of the visionary words – in that respect it is certainly no match for, say, Poul Ruders’s First Symphony (the Goethe-inspired Himmelhochjauchzend – zum Tode betrübt). More brittle in its language than the Second Symphony, Eichberg’s First suggests Roussel and Honegger in the background. Yet the continuity (more traditionally symphonic than in the Second Symphony) is superb, the orchestration is nothing if not effective and the ideas are bursting with energy and raw talent. Just a question mark, for me, over whether these things add up to more than the sum of their parts. Still, my third hearing, on which that reservation rests, certainly won’t be the last.

This is music that comes easily off the page and demands little in terms of interpretation. What it does require is concentration and a degree of virtuosity, and the panache and precision in these performances is not to be taken for granted. Eichberg himself is just rising 40 and is surely one to watch.