The piano trio that is Ensemble Contraste has come up with several resourceful miscellanies over the years and none more so than ‘Une prière’ – a collection which, in the words of pianist Johan Farjot, ‘examines Jewish inspiration in [the context of] Classical music compositions’.

The plangent intensity of the ‘Rapsodie’ that opens Bloch’s Suite hébraïque starts a recital that continues with the ruminative poise of Ravel’s ‘Kaddisch’, then an atmospheric arrangement of the evocative theme from John Williams’s score to the film Schindler’s List. Pierre Génisson brings searching eloquence to the ‘Rumänische Melody’ from Bruch’s autumnal Eight Pieces, whereas Karine Deshayes draws a winsome poise from the traditional Ladino song ‘Morenica’.

The centrepiece of the album, Bloch’s From Jewish Life, is also a microcosm of its composer’s probing approach to Hebraic sources that has remained influential ever since. A confiding transcription of ‘The Good Life’ from Shostakovich’s song-cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry neatly complements the emotional volatility of Béla Kovács’s Sholem-Alekhem, Feidman!, then Orfeo Mandozzi’s idiomatic transcription of Bruch’s Kol Nidrei provides an appealing take on a piece that has latterly found renewed popularity. All six musicians join in for Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes that here makes a suitably rousing conclusion.

Superbly realised and recorded while featuring a brief, perceptive interview with Farjot and Arnaud Thorette, this is a diverse and revealing sequence of pieces that, familiar as they may well be, are given renewed and almost always enhanced profile by such inquiring musicians.