Tuned percussion instruments, the marimba in particular, tend to suck any sense of self-importance out of composers writing for them. That’s certainly the case with the three works here, written in 2003 and 2004. Alexis Alrich’s Marimba Concerto trades in Glass-derived minimalism but the first two movements do more than you expect they will from the initial harmonic setup. The passacaglia of the first movement is cleverer than it seems and the second proves the composer can deliver a nuanced and attractive antecedent-consequence melodic structure. The thin finale is a let-down, however, and Glennie’s marimba rarely moves beyond harmonic punctuation throughout the piece.

Karl Jenkins’s La folia for marimba and strings is a straight realisation of the famous Baroque chord sequence, well executed but not straying from the aesthetic chassis in anything other than the occasional flourish from the marimba and its cadenza. We feel the inherent tragedy in the harmonic sequence itself. Jenkins clearly knows his BWV582.

The album’s meat is Ned Rorem’s Mallet Concerto in seven titled movements, and it’s the one work in which Glennie can show the range and depth of her artistry across four instruments. Rorem’s own vocalise lyricism and broken tonality are all over the piece, from the lamenting clarinet theme that appears in the first movement, ‘A Beginning’ (it returns in the next, ‘Another Minotaur’).

The solo instruments are well used and confined to one per movement, the spangling glockenspiel leading the complex dance that is that movement and returning in the sixth, ‘Tag’, in which it dances fairy-like around the heads of the ensemble. The vibraphone haunts the first and last movements, while the xylophone is a bony presence in the almost-imploding ‘A Xylo-Waltz’. A marimba knocks at the door of the straining ‘Let Me In’ and provides what appears like an accompaniment to the trumpet’s song in ‘Back and Forth’. The interest in Rorem’s piece is that the solo instruments’ roles extend beyond either colourist or melodist. In ‘An Ending’, the elegiac material is churned up by the ensemble but it’s only the vibraphone that can make sense of it.