Here we have not just a follow-up to Dacapo’s appetising first volume of Riisager orchestral works (1/12), but also a selection of music for his own instrument. That he knew his way around the violin is clear from the Bricconata (‘Prank’) and Palavas (a slightly more heavy-footed version of Bazzini’s Le ronde des lutins). Both date from the early 1950s, just before Riisager came out of retirement to direct the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. These jeux d’esprit are interspersed with mildly charming genre pieces from his student years (as a political scientist rather than musician).

Two sonatas give the disc ballast. The Second Sonata for violin and piano grafts on some of the French influences Riisager encountered in a study trip to Paris in 1923, adopting a restless post-Debussian tone. Moving forward again to 1951, the three-movement Sonata for two violins is for me the most rewarding work on the disc, but the warmly expressive Concertino for five violins and piano of 1933 is no mere curiosity either. Some of the credit for the confident stride of both works probably goes to the composer’s period of study in Leipzig with Hermann Grabner (teacher of Geirr Tveitt and many others, and incidentally a card-carrying Nazi). No less impressive are the artistry and dedication lavished on the programme by all the performers.

The orchestral disc kicks off with a postHonegger exercise in style mécanique, celebrating a light commercial aircraft introduced into Denmark in 1926, the year of composition. More precisely, TDOXC evokes ‘mental sensations’ inspired by the aeroplane, which makes for an intriguing balance between onomatopoeia and emotional reaction. The 15-minute single-movement Second Symphony from the following year begins with a comparable acceleration towards a drama that never quite materialises. That sense of unfulfilled promise struck reviewers at the time, and it is a syndrome that afflicts Riisager’s music time and again.

From the movement titles (Feroce, Violento e fantastico, Tumultuoso), the Third Symphony would seem to be a true product of its time (1935). In fact the middle movement has an extended period of mysterious calm and the outer ones no sooner broach serious issues than they shy away from them. Yet again, this is a work that promises more than it ultimately delivers. Still, there is something about Riisager’s habitual short-windedness that suggests an individual sensibility and invites one to persist.

Far from an orchestral showpiece, the Concerto for Orchestra actually feels more like a concerto grosso, recalling Hindemith’s earlier example of the genre rather than the later Bartók, Lutosławski or Tippett. Completing the disc is the sprightly overture Primavera, which characteristically vacillates between pastoral warmth and something tougher and more disturbing. As before, Bo Holten and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra manage to negotiate these tricky scores with a minimum of rough edges and even to give an impression of seasoned acquaintance. As usual with Dacapo, recording and documentation are exemplary.