The Fitelberg you may have heard of is Grzegorz, also a composer but better-known as conductor and transcriber of Szymanowski, and orchestrator of Karowicz. Jerzy was his son, who predeceased his father in 1951, having studied in Berlin, fled from the Nazis to Paris and finally settled in New York from 1940.

The chamber works recorded here reveal a composer of broadly neo-classical orientation, who places no obstacles before the listener, but without descending into triviality. The First String Quartet (1926) is pungently Stravinskian, with some clear lifts from The Soldier’s Tale. Seven years on the Second Quartet – later scored for string orchestra – was awarded a prize by the Association des Jeunes Musiciens Polonaise, and it’s not hard to see why its more lyrical, Gallic poise, with a touch of Bartók-lite, should have appealed to a jury comprising Ravel, Schmitt, Roussel and Honegger.

The Sonatine for two violins of 1939 is less technically demanding and has no pretentions to the kind of substance of, say, Prokofiev and Weinberg’s works in this medium. Equally unpretentious is the wartime Serenade for viola and piano. Finally, the five-minute Nachtmusik, hauntingly scored for high cello, clarinet and celesta, shows the more mystical side of Fitelberg as a teenager – could he have heard Schoenberg’s Herzgewächse?

Together these pieces, all claimed as first recordings, make for an appealing introduction to a modest but gifted composer, especially in these refined performances by the Royal Conservatoire of Toronto’s adventurous in-house ensemble, all beautifully recorded.