Stephen Hartke (b1952) is well known on both sides of the Atlantic, not least due to his wide discography and the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition for Meanwhile: Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays (2007; 1/13^US). Readers with longer memories may recall The Ascent of the Equestrian in a Balloon (1995), a finalist in 1998’s Masterprize Competition, recorded for EMI by the LSO and a young Daniel Harding (2/99 – nla). I find it rather more involving than did Richard Whitehouse back then, a brash but not overcalculated tone poem (composed for his son’s second birthday). Stylistically midway between middle-period Stravinsky and Tippett, it is an effective, entertaining concert opener. Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s new performance sounds more focused and knowledgeable than the LSO’s, BMOP’s sound clearer with more depth.

Hartke is something of a magpie as a composer, not just fascinated by musics from all round the planet but unafraid and unashamed to reuse elements from them, as Meanwhile did with Indonesian gamelan. The three madrigals for string orchestra comprising Alvorada (1983) look to medieval polyphony (and a 13th-century Portuguese love poem) for inspiration. The result is no mere pastiche, however: the harmonic idiom is much closer to Bernstein and Harris than to Victoria or Obrecht, and the concluding ‘Ballada’ is vivacious and fiery. There are nods to Baroque forms in A Brandenburg Autumn (2006), which derives from a visit to Potsdam. Muse of the Missouri (2012) is different again, a substantial, flowing tone poem triggered by the great US river and (in its sparkling central episode) one of St Louis’s fountains. The performances are splendidly realised, nicely balanced and make the best case imaginable for each piece.