Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, now in her mid-sixties, is one of the most prominent American composers of her generation. In 1983 she was the first woman to gain a Pulitzer Prize in composition – for her concentrated First Symphony – and she has received many American awards and honours since. Her work has not penetrated the UK to the same extent although there have been recordings, not all still available. The Violin Concerto (1997) is the third of her many concertos to reach the catalogue. I reviewed the Flute Concerto (Koch, 3/93 – nla) and her Concerto for Tenor Trombone with Christian Lindberg (BIS, 9/94), both admirably played, but I found her style routinely mainstream and predictable. However, Zwilich composes fluently and, if this is modern music in the concert hall, she works in pastel shades. Furthermore, her music is obviously rewarding to play, is written from a precise knowledge of what instruments can do and thus gets good performances.

That is certainly the case with the Violin Concerto, which has some unusual features. There’s a kind of Prokofiev/Walton flavour to the rising figure that opens the work and recurs with adaptations throughout. The second movement is based on Bach’s magisterial Chaconne for solo violin, which is elaborated to an almost sinister climax over the firm basis of its rhythm. The finale contains jazzy rhythms but ends quietly. Zwilich works with tonal centres so that the first movement ends in D major; the second takes over the D minor of the Chaconne; but the finale ends on C with D major neatly superimposed.

The more recent Rituals (2003) is a kind of percussion concerto for five players with some fascinating sonorities. Each of its four movements is based on a different ritual – invocations, marches and dances, memorials, and finally contests. Refreshingly, there is no flamboyant vacuous display: only the second one ends loudly where, for a moment, it sounds as if a solitary violinist had been left tuning up.