Philip Gates was born in 1963 and stresses that, as a composer, he “puts great importance on the tonal and melodic aspects of music, drawing inspiration from many different genres from folk music to jazz”. That’s abundantly clear from this CD, which contains little to scare off even the most conservative of musical tastes. As it happens, I listened first without noting the title or inspiration for the opening set of 18 short piano pieces, and they readily conjured up for me the impression of a pianist in a cocktail bar, playing lightly jazzy improvisations in 1930s popular style, with plenty of reminders of Gershwin and Billy Mayerl. Discovery that the pieces represented characters and scenes from F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby thus brought instant realisation of how well the composer had succeeded in capturing the era.

The Piano Quintet has what the composer calls a prevailing tone of concentrated urgency, with a motto theme that “lends a sinister aspect to portions of the work”. Again, though, it’s music one would happily hear played in one’s own drawing room rather than befitting more austere musical surroundings. None of its three short movements ever threatens to outstay its welcome. As for The Lake Isle, it’s a short tone-poem for oboe and piano, inspired by WB Yeats’s poem of the same title and portraying water lapping by a lake’s shore.

Altogether it’s a commendably enjoyable collection that should appeal readily enough to those who prefer their music on the light side.