Józef Koffler (1896-1944) was an exact contemporary of Roberto Gerhard and Roger Sessions. Like them, his identity as a composer was defined in no small part by the possibility of treating Schoenbergian modernism – the 12-note method, in particular – as something that might invigorate, rather than simply replace, traditional styles and techniques.

Koffler was born in Poland and studied in Vienna with (among others) the Schoenberg pupil Egon Wellesz, also becoming acquainted with Alban Berg. But a career that was already split between university-based research and teaching on the one hand and composition on the other was further disrupted by the military and political upheavals that afflicted Europe between 1914 and 1945. Based in Lwów (now Lviv in Ukraine) after 1924, Koffler was successful enough to merit comparison with Symanowski as a leading light of forward-looking Polish music, but the compositions included on this CD make that comparison difficult to justify. The two sets of songs from 1917 (Op 1) and 1935 (Op 22) have forceful moments of late-Romantic intensity, but the three instrumental works seem uneasy in their attempts to link post-tonal progressiveness to those aspects of neoclassicism and nationalism that, Koffler evidently felt, would make them more acceptable in the increasingly repressive political climate of the time.

Perhaps Koffler lacked the energy and confidence of composers such as Hindemith and Martin≤ who turned away from radicalism in the inter-war years without serious loss of expressive or structural conviction. It could well be that other works, praised by commentators who know the full range of his output – the String Trio (1928) and the cantata Love (1931), for example – would make a more positive impression. Here the performances of the songs and String Quartet No 2 are more convincing than the rather rough-and-ready live recordings of the symphony and concerto. The booklet notes describe the harrowing circumstances of the abduction and presumed murder of Koffler and his wife during the final months of the Second World War; at the very least this disc offers a rare chance to hear something of a Jewish composer’s brave and determined struggle to make music during an impossibly difficult time.