Donald Fraser has made a very successful career from arrangements since his orchestral rescoring of Marin Marais’s The Bells of St Genevieve back in the 1990s, the recent effort probably most interesting to Gramophone readers being his 2016 large-scale orchestration of Elgar’s Piano Quintet and choral rearrangement of the Sea Pictures (7/16).

‘Songs for Strings’ now sees him conducting the English Chamber Orchestra and English Symphony Orchestra in string arrangements of smaller-scale pieces by the likes of Dowland, Vivaldi, Lotti and Elgar; and when clearly no expense has been spared here – the lion’s share was recorded in Abbey Road Studios 1 and 2 no less – I feel bad that I can’t be more enthusiastic.

The nub of the problem for me is that many of these pieces feel both more unwieldy and more uniformly coloured and textured than they do in their original incarnations, which makes for a fast onset of listening fatigue. Purcell’s Ground in C minor is a particular case in point. Also Liszt’s Nuages gris, which is such a multi-shaded, impressionistic gem in its original piano form but here appears substantially heavier-footed and less subtle. Then there’s Sonnerie, Fraser’s strings-and-electronics ‘remix’ of his own aforementioned Marais arrangement; and while with this one there’s no shortage of additional colour, its sound world does rather make me think of 1980s sci fi film.

All that said, there were pieces I enjoyed more. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it’s the Elgar offerings which feel the most comfortable in their new boots: the three art song arrangements and also The Queen’s Hall, a new work based on a piano improvisation recorded by Elgar in 1929. Equally nice are the Scottish folky-cum-martial strains of Lord Lovat’s Lament, a piece written by a Scottish ancestor of Fraser’s who served as piper to the head of the Fraser clan, Lord Lovat.

It’s all nicely played, but perhaps the best way to appreciate this album’s merits is by way of a track here and there, rather than as an end-to-end listen.