Contemporary Finnish guitar concertos may not make the top 10 of anyone’s playlist in a hurry. But if these three very different yet equally exciting and original examples of the genre are anything to go by, perhaps they should.

Written in collaboration with soloist Petri Kumela (as are all the works here), Antti Auvinen’s 2021 guitar concerto Andalusian Panzerwagen Jazz (!) is a four-movement explosion of found-object frenzy, orchestral discipline and often sublime guitar riffs veering between flamenco and jazz, tradition and anarchy, earnestness and humour. Auvinen is also a guitarist by training and has an instinctive feel for the instrument’s integration with/alienation from the orchestral fabric; but equally striking is his inventive use of objects such as an egg slicer and ‘dog chew toys in a bag’.

There’s also colour and humour aplenty in Lotta Wennäkoski’s Sussurus (2016), the movements of which flow into each other on the wings of plastic ruler-induced raspings, slapped strings, bowed sighs, glissandos and more pointillistic passages counterpointing with shimmering sonic curtains. Often relentlessly muscular rhythms will attach to the germs of their own destruction as the energy dissipates into delicate fragmentary pools.

As Andrew Mellor notes in his excellent commentary on Riikka Talvitie’s Without Irony, the composer ‘salutes the guitar’s prevalence in popular culture by using the “e‑bow” developed by rock and jazz guitarists’. This battery-powered device sets strings in motion via a magnetic field and the effect is indeed haunting, such ‘singing’ passages contrasting with the frenetic toccata-like episodes in which a harpsichord is also present – surprisingly a far from incongruous presence.

Kumela, a protean classical guitarist with eclectic tastes and technique to burn, gives the superb Tapiola Sinfonietta under Dima Slobodeniouk a run for their money in the musicianship stakes, the three together proving very persuasive advocates indeed for this magnificently entertaining music. Exquisite, yes; absurd – well, sometimes.