The intersection of past and present – past made present, as the disc’s title states – is nowhere more tellingly realised than in the second of Jessica Krash’s two song-cycles on this thoroughly engaging, thought-provoking programme. The Cantigas de amigo of Martin Codax (2015) are seven songs by the eponymous 13th-century Spanish minstrel to which Krash composed a ‘modern piano accompaniment … faithful to the emotional and structural ideas of the original songs’. The result is a truly vibrant fusion of past and present, the piano at times emulating medieval instruments, at others being itself. Krash also composed the vocal part for the sixth song, missing from the manuscript. It is a haunting cycle, full of youthful ardour and steely-eyed wistfulness.

Sulpicia’s Songs (2015), setting texts from even further back in time (first-century BC Rome), sit squarely within the late-Romantic art-song tradition, less remarkable but radiantly sung here – as are the Martin Codax Cantigas – by Emily Noël. Ancient Greece is evoked in the compelling unaccompanied cello solo, Delphi: What the Oracle Said (1997, rev 2014).

Krash’s musical language is euphoniously tonal, chameleon-like in style, allowing her to create convincing works as different as the two song-cycles and the Impressionistic fantasy for flute, Turns of Phrase (2016), inspired by the shakuhachi and delightfully played by Laura Kaufman and the composer, a sensitive accompanist here as in the songs. There are places where Krash’s euphony becomes counterproductive, as in the cantata Young Vilna, where the harrowing implications of the text – a series of questions concerning the Holocaust as it occurred in Lithuania (Krash is of Lithuanian Jewish descent) – are just not reflected in the musical setting. Despite disparate provenance, the recordings sound well together and make a fine case for a fascinating composer. Well worth investigating.