Here’s another sumptuous instalment of Sir Simon Rattle’s Szymanowski cycle, showing that his rapport with his former Birmingham colleagues is as productive as ever. The main item is Harnasie, a “ballet-pantomime” which loses nothing in concert performance, at least when that performance is as exciting as this one. It occupied the composer on and off for eight years (1923-31), bridging the gap between the exotic late-romanticism that reached its apogee in the opera King Roger and his final pair of concertos. Harnasie has long been acclaimed for demonstrating Szymanowski’s ability to move with the times but its use of folk music doesn’t mean that it challenges mid-1920s Bartók or Janácek in progressiveness. This tale of romance and mayhem in bandit country is kitschy in the extreme. Yet even when the music evokes Borodin more vividly than Stravinsky it is utterly irresistible.

Timothy Robinson makes a strong contribution to Harnasie but it’s the solo singing of Katarina Karnéus and Iwona Sobotka in the two song sets that confirms the disc’s special appeal. In the Eight Love Songs of Hafiz Syzmanowski conjures up a sound world of almost Bergian concentration and opulence, with the richly eloquent final lament the crown in this superbly refined account. The Songs of a Fairy-tale Princess is a slighter piece and Iwona Sobotka is not ideally flexible in its taxingly florid lines. But Rattle ensures, as he does throughout, that the mesmerising allure and elaborate textural fantasy of the music are always tinglingly immediate. With a recording that projects the often dense orchestral fabric without undue constraint or loss of clarity, this disc is undoubtedly a winner.