As on its previous album (BIS2482) devoted to the music of Michael Jarrell (b1958), BIS has paired two of his scintillating concertante works with an orchestral work as centrepiece. Paysages avec figures absentes – Nachlese IV (2009 – the title translates as ‘Landscapes with absent figures – Gleanings IV’) was written for Isabelle Faust as a ‘kind of antiphony’ for violin and orchestra created ‘in a different way’, and there is little of the conventional cut-and-thrust of the standard concerto. Rather, the work has a meditative feel at its core, due perhaps to the music’s resolute refusal to develop its material in a traditional manner. Ilya Gringolts is the passionate soloist here, turning these ‘gleanings’ into something wholesome and substantial.

There is no lack of substance in the percussion concerto … un long fracas somptueux de rapide céleste … (1998), which draws inspiration from a surreal description of the drawn-out First World War Battle of the Meuse (rather than the lightning advance of the Panzers in 1940), which gave this phantasmagorical tone poem its title, ‘a long, sumptuous thunder of celestial rapidity’. Florent Jodelet is the nimble soloist bringing order to the disparate elements and textures – not least of the recurring ‘primal explosion’ with its skittering percussion and rumble of drums.

The excellent Pays de la Loire Orchestra, who accompany the two concertos in exemplary fashion, take centre stage in the album’s centrepiece, the Sechs Augenblicke (‘Moments’, 2022), Jarrell’s response to the ethical incongruity of composing for large ensembles during lockdown. The six moments gradually decrease in size towards the centre of the set, and while the final pair increase in length, they never match the opening couple. Here Jarrell’s orchestral manner (which throughout has a remarkably eclectic and cosmopolitan feel – listen out for resonances of what Britten might have sounded like in 2022) achieves its clearest form. Pascal Rophé secures a strong and evocative account, with gorgeous sound. A very strong recording.