Magnus Lindberg wrote his Violin Concerto No 2 (2015) for Frank Peter Zimmermann. Whether or not the German’s thick-set tone and pre-eminence in Szymanowski influenced the Finnish composer, the work is one of Lindberg’s most tonal and luscious to date. However tightly woven, this is a Romantic concerto in disguise, where Lindberg’s First was more Classical. The theme aired towards the end of the first movement that comes to fruition in the central one (there are no movement breaks) is short, emotive and could be by Korngold; the music’s consistent goal-orientation, its charged energy field sitting between extreme polarities, is all Lindberg’s own and recognisably so. Notable features include the soloist’s frantic, crude sawing away at the open strings, a muster point to which he returns as if to recharge and refocus, and the work’s raised-eyebrow, backdoor ending. Zimmermann gives the piece his considerable all, though there’s the occasional moment of ambiguity right at the top of his register.

Tempus fugit (2016 17) is more of a riddle. This is Lindberg looking back on himself: revisiting, courtesy of a long period of research, harmonic techniques he explored in the late ’80s. It’s odd hearing echt ‘Lindberg’ gestures copied by Lindberg himself, like a dancer trying to retrace his own steps by studying a grainy old VHS. The music is still built from the bottom up but the five-part piece never really soars, and the devolution into chamber-like textures feels mannered, robbing the music of that essential Lindberg quality: the feeling of a mammoth single structure heaving its way along. It is characteristically wise of Lindberg to have taken stock in Tempus fugit but the process’s ripest fruits may be still to come.