It’s easy enough for good composers to fall between the cracks of history, but one who says bluntly ‘Composing full-time was the last thing I ever considered’ is even more liable to become a hostage to fortune.

Breton Jean Cras, who was born in Brest in 1879 and died there in 1932, had an outstanding career as a naval officer and at his death was a Rear Admiral in charge of the port of his native city. But to write him off simply as an amateur composer would be a great mistake. Some credit must obviously go to Henri Duparc, his only teacher, but most of it, I would guess, is due to Cras’s innate abilities. And only very occasionally does he let things go on too long – for which much thanks.

On the strength of the orchestral disc I wouldn’t place him in the front rank as an orchestrator – for me the sound is often a little middle-heavy. This is especially the case when Cras is being ‘serious’, as he is in the first movement of the Piano Concerto. The following two movements are much more successful and typify the two areas in which he was strongest: mystery and folky song-and-dance. The sounds in the slow movement are haunting in their harmonic complexity, while in the last movement Cras successfully integrates pseudo-folk tunes of five- and seven-in-a-bar into the overall narrative.

Even more enjoyable is the Légende, helped by playing both beautiful and virtuosic from cellist Henri Demarquette. Again we hear Cras indulging in his strengths, with the bonus of a wonderfully imaginative cadenza over a timpani ostinato. Cellists looking for a 15-minute work with orchestra should pause here.

In his piano music Cras is clearly indebted to Debussy, both in the harmonic style and in the practice of multi-layering. But he goes further in his reliance on modality and, once more, on folklike materials. For anyone wanting a brief synopsis of the Cras piano style, I would suggest the last two of the Poèmes intimes. ‘Recueillement’, inspired by the Baudelaire poem, is perhaps the best music on either disc – a piece of controlled, refined melancholy, in no way dishonouring the text from which it sprang. The lively clatter of descending fourths in ‘La maison du matin’ brings us smartly out of our reverie and in Alain Jacquon’s capable hands builds to a truly impressive conclusion. Let’s be happy that the French navy’s gain was not wholly music’s loss.