Thea Musgrave (b1928) belongs to a generation of Scottish composers – Iain Hamilton, Thomas Wilson and Ronald Stevenson are others – who were confronted with the radical innovations of the immediate post-war years even before they’d had time to absorb the earlier radicalisms of the Schoenberg school. After studies in Edinburgh and Paris which encouraged rejection of radicalism for its own sake, Musgrave has spent most of her time in America, and it is with a degree of affectionate distancing that she alludes to things Scottish and British in two of these compositions from the last 15 years.

Songs for a Winter’s Evening sets seven Burns lyrics, including such familiar items as “Ca’ the yowes” and “Ye banks and braes”, in ways which acknowledge their folky associations while opening them out to a more opulent, romanticised idiom. The result has a very positive, personal perspective, yet the blend isn’t entirely convincing despite an excellent performance. By contrast, Musgrave’s no less individual response to a group of Turner’s paintings in Turbulent Landscapes is a triumph: cogently structured yet uninhibitedly pictorial encapsulations of these canvases which manage to be economical, witty and distinctively expressive all at the same time.

Two’s Company adds to Musgrave’s sequence of concertos in which the obvious contrast between soloist(s) and orchestra is enhanced by allowing the soloists to move around the performance space, challenging and responding to different groups of supporting (or opposing) instruments. Here the unusual pairing of oboe and percussion suggests a progression from initial disparity to eventual unanimity. The later stages of this are engaging, the earlier music more diffuse, less focused. All three live performances come across well in recordings that bring out Musgrave’s myriad instrumental felicities: but Turbulent Landscapes is the stand-out success.