The music of Pierre(-Charles) Sancan (1916-2008) is rarely heard. Though a much-revered figure in his native France as a composer, pianist and teacher, his name is virtually unknown elsewhere. So this tribute led by one of his many distinguished pupils, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, and Yan Pascal Tortelier, who fell under Sancan’s influence at the Paris Conservatoire, is as authentic as it is valuable and rewarding.

Knowing only one piece by Sancan (the little Boîte à musique), I was intrigued to discover what kind of orchestral music he wrote. The opening Ouverture joyeuse told me that the spirit of Chabrier and Ibert (think Divertissement) is alive and well: unmistakably French, boisterous high-spirits and superb orchestral colours (the percussion department are let off the leash in quite spectacular style). Why is it not a regular concert-opener? It would make a welcome change from, say, Candide or Ruslan and Lyudmila. It is Bartók and Prokofiev on steroids that defines the first movement of Sancan’s Piano Concerto (1955), a disconcertingly grim 15 minutes that will mitigate against any place in a public popularity poll but which is followed by a tender slow movement and riotous finale (both surely taking their cue from Ravel’s G major Concerto) that will make many friends. Bavouzet carries all before him with tremendous power and élan.

The Symphonie for string orchestra (1961) is in a similar vein, three short movements (fast-slow-fast) lasting just 11'19". Delightful – as is the Commedia dell’arte overture, cut from the same cloth as the opener and played by the BBC players with the same punch and panache. Adam Walker partners Bavouzet in Sancan’s most-recorded work, the Sonatine for flute and piano, written in the same vein as Ibert, Ravel and prescient Poulenc – though palpably not by any of them.

Bavouzet rounds off the programme with four short works for solo piano. Sancan’s Toccata (1943), Caprice romantique for the left hand alone (1949) and the concluding Mouvement (1946) are virtuoso firecrackers, dispatched with thrilling abandon (the frequent passages of machine-gun repeated notes, one of Sancan’s specialities, are quite electrifying). The one misstep is Boîte à musique (1950), a genre piece (there are others by Liadov, Sauer, Rebikov, Villa-Lobos and Hough). Bavouzet sees it not as the witty imitation of a musical box but as a melancholy waltz, which altogether misses the point. The 14-year-old Sergio Tiempo, who also studied with Sancan, played it as an encore in his 1986 recital at the Concertgebouw to rather greater effect.

No matter. If this musical tribute to Sancan doesn’t garner all sorts of awards, I shall be very surprised.