These two works by the Azerbaijani composer Faradzh Karaev (b1943) date from 2004 (Violin Concerto) and 2009 (Vingt ans après – nostalgie…) respectively. Despite the fact that its German title specifies ‘concerto for orchestra and solo violin’, the first composition depends greatly on the personality of a soloist – like Patricia Kopatchinskaja – able to do full justice to both the fragmented skitterings of the early stages and the haunted simplicity of the ending, as the music discovers its essential theme. The journey it makes is nothing if not intense, with the various allusions signalled in the central movement – the Mendelssohn Concerto prominent among them – seeming to stand for a protagonist’s painful search for a relatively stable identity. The music impresses through its sheer insistence, and especially in the finale, where obsessively rhythmic dance material yields to the sad simplicity of the coda. The performance is suitably forceful and concentrated, despite the constricted recording.

Vingt ans après – nostalgie… has better sound, though it still lacks the spacious resonances the music calls for. This work is dedicated to the memories of Edison Denisov and Alfred Schnittke, who died in 1996 and 1998 respectively, and uses musical letters from their names to generate an eerily compelling homage. Karaev can be compared with other enigmatic composers of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, such as Galina Ustvolskaya and Valentin Silvestrov, with a curious blend of pared-down austerity and agonised expansiveness that projects a memorably elegiac, sometimes protesting persona. Despite its technical limitations and poor presentation, this release rewards repeated listening.