A native of Baku, Azerbaijan, Kara Karayev (1918-82) was a composition pupil of Shostakovich at the Moscow Conservatory. Unlike his distinguished teacher, he emerged unscathed from Andrey Zhdanov’s notorious cultural purge of February 1948, and hearing these two tuneful and highly approachable scores one imagines they found a ready and receptive audience in Soviet theatres. Inspired by a poem by the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, The Seven Beauties (1953) grew out of a symphonic suite of four years previously and was the first full-length Azerbaijani ballet. There’s nothing here to scare the horses, and any reader with a soft spot for, say, the Khachaturian ballets should definitely investigate.

Premiered by the Kirov in Leningrad five years later, The Path of Thunder (which takes its cue from Peter Abrahams’s eponymous anti-apartheid novel of 1948) reveals an even defter touch and rather more adventurous harmonic scope – prior to composition Karayev apparently (and, on this evidence, beneficially) immersed himself in an intensive study of African and African American music, and we’re offered the Second Suite that he extracted from this attractive score. Do sample the powerfully evocative ‘Night in Stilleveld’ and yearningly lyrical ‘Scene and Duet’ for evidence of Karayev’s not inconsiderable melodic gifts.

Certainly, the RPO under Dmitry Yablonsky sound as if they enjoyed making this colourful repertoire’s acquaintance. Naxos’s Andrew Walton and Mike Clements have come up with top-quality sound. Well worth checking out at this price point.