Since NMC issued its first disc of music by Simon Holt (5/93) there has been a steady stream of new work, much of it for the relatively small-scale vocal and instrumental resources which reflect the realities of contemporary commissioning. With Holt, however, one suspects that he prefers such constraints, given his love of the concentrated and – more often than not – the claustrophobic. In lesser hands, such preoccupations could be dispiriting for the listener, but Holt’s work is so imaginative that its effect is invariably invigorating and inspiring.

Kites (1983) is the earliest piece, and its images of unpredictable floating in space are the un-claustrophobic exception that proves the rule. Lilith (1990) is pictorial too, and scarily evocative of the ghostly monster said to be Adam’s first wife: only eight players are needed for a strongly constructed, 11-minute portrait-in-miniature.

Writing on this scale means that Holt can make virtuoso demands of his performers, revealing as he does so his exceptional ear for what instruments can do. Eco-Pavan (1998) is especially resourceful, the piano provoking echoes in the other instruments and in a group of ghostly voices, which are often acoustically tenuous yet function persuasively within the structure.

With Boots of Lead (2002), setting the poem by Emily Dickinson beginning ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’, music itself is the poetic theme of a scena whose eerily intense atmosphere seems to link it with Holt’s music-theatre piece about murder and guilt, Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm? (2003). Finally, Feet of Clay (also 2002) distils an even darker dramatic character, as heroic and anti-heroic gestures become increasingly difficult to disentangle. At the end the cello’s bottom string is tuned almost an octave lower than usual, and these sepulchral, haunting sounds, before a final, defiant thump, set the seal on a technically immaculate disc, performed with tremendous flair by all concerned. It serves to reinforce Holt’s position as one of the very best British composers writing today.