These belles quarts d’heure follow a tried-and-tested recipe, coming out a little differently each time. On a blind tasting you would hardly guess country of origin, and probably not the date. Only by a process of elimination might you pick up after-notes from the lusher end of Debussy’s harmonies, enriched by Messiaenic added sevenths, a Ravelian precision of gesture and translucent instrumentation, and finally the mood of cool restraint, so oriental to occidental ears, and come to the answer of Takemitsu.

Even presented to perfection, three soufflés would be a bit much for a single sitting, and the guitar concertante works recorded here – Spectral Canticle for the first time – are likewise best sampled individually. Jakob Kellermann’s playing matches the refinement of Takemitsu’s textures, opened out for the listener by immaculate engineering, which scores over a live experience with the balance problems attendant on guitar concertos in general.

Such live experiences are in any case hard to come by; Takemitsu’s name seemed to die not long after the composer in 1996. The likes of Hosokawa and Nishimura have not taken over his singular space in modern classical music. There is a memorial, retrospective quality to the bell-like coda of To the Edge of Dream, as well as a sudden energy and radiance, that irresistibly brings to mind the figure of Oliver Knussen, and it returns in the drifting melancholy of Twill by Twilight, making the album as indispensable for collectors as Knussen’s own Takemitsu albums for Virgin and DG.