Any recording of any music by Engelbert Humperdinck is to be savoured by his devotees, though we know better than to expect the extraordinary magic of Königskinder and Hänsel und Gretel at every turn. There are moments on this album that cross into that special domain, but only moments. The chief interest here is context for those works, in which the workings of Humperdinck’s theatrical mind are laid bare.

Some of the musical scenery is noticeably hand-shunted but Humperdinck is nothing if not sturdy. The Prelude to Act 2 of Die Heirat wilder Willen (after Alexandre Dumas’s Les demoiselles de Saint-Cyr) is all anticipation. Incidental music to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is professionally utilitarian and unobtrusive; the depiction of the love between Lorenzo and Jessica rises to offer an idiosyncratic Humperdinckian embrace.

Likewise the last of five movements from music for a 1912 screening of the film Das Wunder at Covent Garden, which tells of a wayward nun running off with a knight. As in Hänsel, ‘Christmas Music’ lifts off when Humperdinck uses known tunes – in this case Lutheran chorales – and calls on his signature way of crowning a scene like a cosy domestic Parsifal. The other four movements were designed to be more unobtrusive but on record, as in Die Heirat, feel disjointed. Music for a 1908 production of Sophocles’ Lysistrata is slight and basic but has hints of fairy tale.

The only music not divorced from its purpose here is the slight pilgrimage-themed cantata Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar after texts by Heine. Suddenly Humperdinck is all the more vivid, but depth of feeling and sophistication of construction are more Stainer’s The Crucifixion than Wagner’s Tannhäuser, even if Humperdinck is able to cover a lot of narrative in a short space of time.

Performances from the Malmö Opera orchestra and chorus under Dario Salvi are as evocative as they need to be; tenor Harrie van der Plas is best of the soloists, the two female singers sometimes shaky and not blending well in ‘Casket Song’ from the Shakespeare. The booklet note writer is all at sea, preferring to tell us who else has scored The Merchant of Venice, from Arthur Sullivan to Jocelyn Pook, than to set the music recorded in dramatic context.