Schnittke’s marvellously dark-turning-darker Eighth Symphony was his valedictory grand statement, a kind of spiritual “ninth symphony”, which makes this patchy reconstruction of his actual Ninth sound like an inconsequential footnote. Alexander Raskatov, who worked on the score shortly after Schnittke’s death in 1998, tells us that there were “three finished movements in full score”, which implies, possibly, further movements had Schnittke lived.

But the problem is, there is a discernable something missing. It’s not clear whether the present three-movement construct – essentially a gradual accelerando over 35 minutes – was Schnittke’s or Raskatov’s plan. The precedent of Shostakovich’s accelerating forms comes to mind as a model, but Schnittke’s raw material lacks structural tautness, and a sense of argument – or a strategic lack of argument. The sound world is unrelentingly anonymous and monochrome, as every parameter is sucked into an unconvincing middle-ground.

There are moments that ring true. The thin, spidery webs of counterpoint, weaving outwards from string textures with the consistency of gruel, are familiar from other late-period Schnittke, and a disembodied chorale that briefly overlaps competing material in the final movement sounds authentic. But Schnittke was a master editor of material, and here his usually meticulous ear for pointing of gestures and shaping of structure is missing.

Nunc dimittis – empathically not a fourth movement to Schnittke’s Ninth, but Raskatov’s free-standing tribute – ends the disc, and it’s strikingly undistinguished. Raskatov is another one of those Pärt-meets-Tavener post-Holy Minimalism composers that ECM like and I don’t.