Slow glissandi figure prominently in Gloria Coates’s music, as Kyle Gann points out in his perceptive notes to this disc. In the first movement of the Symphony No 15 (2005), these slides are expressive tendrils that grow from long, aching tones; in the second, they’re thick, sinewy vines that envelop and overwhelm a tonal chorale quotation (adapted from Mozart’s motet Ave verum corpus, K618); and in the finale, they vaporise, taking to the air like a cloud of insects. The result, in all three cases, is a feeling of unnerving dislocation. Then, in the “Illumination” movement of Transitions (1984), creeping slides entangle yet another quotation (“Dido’s Lament” from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas) to similar effect.

In fact, listening to the disc straight through, I was somewhat perplexed by the music’s narrow emotional range. I expected such unrelenting bleakness in the Cantata da Requiem (1972), with its mournful, bitter verses, but I hoped for some relief over the course of the hour-long programme – a dramatic change of colour or texture, perhaps. Having said that, however, each work is effective when taken on its own. Both the Symphony and Transitions have strong, dramatic profiles and make their points with impressive concision. The performances, recorded live, are all thoroughly professional. Teri Dunn screeches a bit in the opening aria of the Cantata, but this seems to be what the composer intended, and it certainly fits the anguished tone of the text.