Somewhere in the mists of legend, but not far from the eastern reaches of the Danube, a king enlists a mystical seer to bring his dead beloved back to life. If you’ve spent any time in Romania, you’ll have encountered the 19th-century poet Mihai Eminescu – every town has at least one street named after him. His verse is heady, gothic stuff, and you can see its appeal to Enescu, whose 1916 oratorio Strigoii (‘Ghosts’) plunges deep into Eminescu’s lurid, heavily overcast imaginative world.

Or, at least, it nearly does. Enescu’s piano sketches date from 1916 but were left incomplete. The version on this ‘premiere recording’ was assembled by Cornel Țăranu in the 1970s and orchestrated by Sabin Pautza more recently. It certainly sounds the part. Pautza has captured the sombre, intensely chromatic sound world of Enescu’s near-contemporary Third Symphony, all sulphurous bass clarinet, baleful trombones and occasional flashes of steel-toothed brilliance.

While intensely atmospheric (conductor Gabriel Bebeşelea manages both tension and texture extremely well), Strigoii feels unbalanced; there’s not much contrast over its oppressively dour 45 minute span. The soloists are all Romanian and they sing (and for large stretches, speak) Eminescu’s words with real relish. Alin Anca has a splendidly sepulchral bass and tenor Tiberius Simu catches the heroic tone of King Arald.

The other singers have very little to do, and the predominance of spoken narration (this is an oratorio without a chorus) is a constant reminder that Enescu never actually completed the piece (confusingly, the libretto and translation for Part 2 seems to include several verses that Enescu did not set). The surprisingly peppery Pastorale fantaisie of 1899 – which also appears to be a first recording – receives a full-blooded performance. If you’re already an Enescu fan, you needn’t hesitate.