The ‘Last Song before the News’, reflected in composer-violinist Una Sveinbjarnardóttir’s eponymous final track, is an Icelandic tradition, the playing of a song or lyrical piece as an oasis of serenity, or nostalgia, just before the midday news broadcast. Sveinbjarnardóttir’s programme is a succession of such pieces, reality returning after the last track fades away and all music stops.

There is an undercurrent of memorials to friends, too, not least three influential Icelandic composers. For a time, Sveinbjarnardóttir had the good fortune to play in a duo with Atli Heimir Sveinsson (1938-2017); his transcription of the sparely lyrical Three Marian Prayers (1998, for chorus) became a repertoire piece for them. Magnús Blöndal Jóhannsson (1925-2005) pioneered experimental music in the 1950s and ’60s but In a Dream (originally a song, played in transcription) and Lullaby (the manuscript of which Sveinbjarnardóttir found in Iceland’s National Library) are composed in his later, simpler style. Although not credited on the disc, Lullaby’s accompaniment is played on a toy piano, while the opening Unmeasured Prelude, one of two arrangements of Louis Couperin, the title-track and Hildegard’s Anima Processional (no arranger credit, curiously) have the piano prepared in some form.

The heart of the disc is the Icelandic Suite (1974) by the doyenne of Icelandic music, Jórunn Viar (1918-2017). Its five movements form a vivid tapestry of Europe’s north-western island, concluding with a spirited dance, the Vikivaki. The suite is in marked contrast to the tiny, concentrated tone picture Winter by Karólina Eiríksdóttir (b1951), a real gem.

Sveinbjarnardóttir, sensitively accompanied throughout by Tinna Þorsteinsdóttir, is at her best in the music of her compatriots, performances of compelling atmosphere. The various arrangements of more standard repertoire, from Gluck and Monteverdi to Massenet and Ole Bull, are less involving (though nicely done) as they depart from the otherwise unknown landscapes of the Icelandic works. Splendid sound, mixed and mastered by Daniel Shores.