This new recording from the Houston-based Apollo Chamber Players string quartet, which has commissioned over 50 works for a variety of ensembles, is highlighted by works they commissioned from Adolphus Hailstork and the brilliant Argentine bandoneonist Héctor Del Curto.

Del Curto’s title-track for quartet, viola and bandoneón incorporates seductive and vibrant tango influences from the Rio de la Plata region, which violinist Matt Detrick calls ‘a story of tango music’. Del Curto’s Bien Curiosa is a joyful milonga for his son, colourfully written, as is Piazzolla’s Tango Ballet, which was written for a dance film since lost.

Piazzolla and Hailstork both studied with Nadia Boulanger; Argentine tango is your music, she said to Piazzolla, and essentially gave Hailstork that same kind of advice. And so Hailstork’s emotionally moving Rhapsody, which Apollo requested be based on material representing his heritage, represents a slave’s visions of escape.

Julia Smith’s short Quartet from 1964 could have been written a half a century earlier, with Debussy and late-stage German romanticism in its blood, but it is confident and original and good to know. Jessie Montgomery’s Voodoo Dolls and an arrangement of Agustín Bardi’s 1927 Gallo ciego tango make exciting encore pieces.

Apollo and friends navigate these largely uncharted waters with virtuosity and an idiomatic feel for Latin rhythms. The sound, recorded at Houston’s Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and The Clarion at Brazosport College in Lake Jackson, is clear and dynamic.