Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) is one of the most fascinating figures in American music. Born near Berlin and raised in Alsace, Hungary and what’s now Ukraine, he studied and worked in Berlin and Paris before ending up in the US at the age of 20, where he became assistant concertmaster with the recently formed Boston Symphony – and his music reflects his strange, pan-European background. One passage may sound like Wagner or Strauss and the next like Fauré (a friend of his) or Debussy.

He was, like his contemporary Paul Dukas, incredibly self-critical, and the Octet presented on this Delos recording is a prime example of his exactitude. Premiered in Boston in 1897 by the Kneisel Quartet and colleagues from the BSO, it was then shelved and never published nor heard again. Clarinettist Graeme Steele Johnson found the score in the Library of Congress and spent a year putting together a working score from the heavily edited manuscript – and for that labour of love, I for one am immensely grateful.

Scored for the unusual combination of two clarinets, harp, string quartet and bass, the Octet begins in a Brahmsian mode (the droning fifths in the lower strings bring Brahms’s First Serenade to mind) but before long a series of whole-tone scales changes the accent from German to French. What’s remarkable, though, is how seamlessly he marries these ‘accents’ together – it all flows so naturally.

Brahms’s spirit reappears in the gorgeous slow movement (this time paying homage to the Clarinet Quintet, perhaps?), and after a lilting duet for the two clarinets (at 4'51") the extended closing section (at 6'10") gradually gives in to Straussian rapture. Oddly, the alla zingara finale isn’t especially gypsy-like. Indeed, while the slow introduction does have a Slavic character, it’s more Russian than Central European. And some of the folksy themes sound to me as if they have an Anglo-Irish snap (as at 1'47"). Yet again, though, it all hangs together magically. The performance is superb and richly recorded, and I’ve been listening to it obsessively.

The programme opens with Johnson’s arrangement of Debussy’s Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune for the same ensemble as Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro (flute, clarinet, harp and string quartet) plus a bass. And, for a lovely encore after the Octet, Johnson and harpist Bridget Kibbey play their arrangement of Loeffler’s song ‘Timbres oubliés’. ‘Forgotten Sounds’ goes straight to the top of my ‘Best of 2024’ list.