Curtailed by his untimely death‚ the output of Bruno Maderna (1920­73) is difficult to assess as a totality. Hence the value of this new disc is in providing an overview‚ albeit not a fully representative one. Certainly the Liriche su Verlaine (1946­47) goes back to its beginnings‚ the restrained vocal line and modally­inflected piano part recalling Debussy’s last songs. From the opposite end of his career‚ the guitar piece Y después (1972) resourcefully conjoins flamenco stylisms with austere chordal writing‚ the depth and resonance of the 10 strings used with an often improvisatory freedom. The Piano Concerto (1959­60) comes from a period when tightly­controlled serial thinking was giving way to a controlled freedom of composing. If the rebarbative opening pages – the presence of Messiaen’s Oiseaux éxotiques is detectable in the confrontation between soloist and orchestra – sound more desperate than decisive‚ the lengthy cadenza abounds in subtle shadings‚ while the final minutes reconcile opposing forces without loss of impetus. In the Second Oboe Concerto (1967)‚ solo and ensemble passages alternate as much as they interact – though the continuo­type role allotted to the percussion‚ and the soloist’s lyrical duetting with oboe d’amore in the closing stages‚ prevent any feeling of randomness in the unfolding of events. These are expertly prepared performances – though the dry acoustic of Milan’s Teatro Lirico does rob the music of some of its sensuousness – and Sandro Gorli provides informative notes. Capricious and wilful as he often is‚ Maderna is never a hermetic or obscure composer. His music gives a great degree of pleasure‚ and this well­chosen selection makes a good starting­point from which to explore it.