Among younger Finnish composers, Olli Virtaperko (b1973) certainly ranks among the most striking, as is witnessed by the three concertos on this first disc to be dedicated to his music. Not least Multikolor (2014), in which a baritone saxophone pursues its stealthy and eventful course across a single movement of notable timbral and harmonic resource, even though melodic interest is at a premium. Interesting too that the composer considers Romer’s Gap (2016) to be ‘more concise, more disciplined and more serious’, as this work for amplified cello rather sprawls its way through an opening movement whose climactic cadenza all too readily evokes ‘classic rock’ guitar clichés while its successor audibly delights in iridescent harmonies at the expense of overall cohesion, though the finale at least instils a momentum as it heads to a conclusion of no mean panache. From this vantage, Ambrosian Delights (2015) is the most successful of these pieces. Maybe the tube analogue synthesiser that is the knifonium is all too redolent of 1970s funk keyboards, but the rhythmic groove then spacey harmonies of its first two movements link seamlessly into the cumulative build-up of a passacaglia, and the finale pursues an animated course to its almost catchy ending.

As to the performers, Jonte Knif proves the very image of a virtuoso on the instrument which he himself created, while Joonatan Rautiola and Perttu Kivilaakso (formerly of the cello rock band Apocalyptica) similarly leave nothing to chance. Entertaining and not a little provocative in its intent, one might only have wished for greater substance in Virtaperko’s music overall.