It’s always exciting to hear the fruits of a lesser-known musical mind, and Lorenzo Perosi (1872-1956) certainly doesn’t disappoint here. These fresh and lively conceptions, often orchestral in scope and always seeming to push the limits of what such an ensemble can deliver, are clearly the products of a richly creative imagination. Perosi himself was a maestro di cappella and priest, overseeing his musical flocks at St Mark’s, Venice, and the Sistine Chapel from the turn of the 20th century, positions that biographers note he held until the end of his life, despite breaks to deal with his mental health. He is best known for his numerous oratorios, which enjoyed immense popularity and gained the admiration of the writer Romain Rolland. Puccini said of him: ‘There is more music in Perosi’s head than in mine and Mascagni’s put together.’

So what of this prolific and enigmatic composer? The melodies and textures seem ever-changing; figurations morph and pile on top of each other, and we are surprised by overture-like curtain-raisers and idiosyncratic false endings. It is a series of vignettes, visions, flashes of landscapes seen when going by on a train, as if he can’t contain himself to one impression or association at a time. The conception is at times like that of Janáček’s speech-rhythms, and at others almost Ivesian in terms of layering and use of the vernacular.

The playing is ebullient and committed, and sometimes really sparkles. The tone is earnest, at times even quite raw. This willingness to be thus exposed is brave and the challenge is largely well met. The material is mostly well managed but I would have loved to hear even more freedom given to some of Perosi’s strange conceptions and flights of fancy.

There seems to be a dialectic struggle inherent in this music. At times I feel like I don’t want to hear any more repeating unison scalic passages, though I’m sure the players felt similarly! And then there are moments of real surprise, when one wonders if he really is a largely forgotten genius. This struck me most when I heard the little piano-and-pizzicato syncopated vignette in the last minute of the Moderatamente mosso of the D minor Second Quintet. It was shockingly and beguilingly modern, almost like a riff from a 21st-century pop song. Perosi clearly found it equally haunting, as he brings it back to finish off the work. There is much that is dramatic and cinematic about this music, and one can’t help but wonder what might have happened had he ever strayed from the church and moved out West instead.