This programme may have been designed as a centenary tribute to Astor Piazzolla but it’s Juanjo Mosalini who steals the limelight. Mosalini’s vividly characterised account of the Bandoneón Concerto is viscerally exciting, and not merely because his playing in the outer movements is so propulsive and rhythmically taut – he drives the finale hard, seeming to leap through the semiquaver licks – but also because his generously long-breathed phrasing in the slow movement generates such a powerful emotional undertow.

Even more impressive, perhaps, is Mosalini’s arrangement of The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. There have been other adaptations of these works for string orchestra, including a daringly free recomposition by Leonid Desyatnikov, popularised through Gidon Kremer’s Nonesuch recording (5/00), and Roberto Molinelli’s more respectful yet equally effective version, recently recorded by the Cappella Gabetta (Sony, 7/19). Mosalini’s falls somewhere between the two; he’s done extensive rewriting yet it’s in a style that’s in tune with the originals. Indeed, Mosalini highlights the music’s cinematic qualities, which seems fitting for Piazzolla, who wrote dozens of film scores over the course of his career. What’s unusual here (besides the fact that the primary solo part is for bandoneón rather than violin) is that Mosalini has sewn the four separate pieces together to form a single 25-minute movement. The stitching is deftly done (listen, say, at 17'06", where he subtly joins ‘Winter’ and ‘Spring’), although the result cannot disguise the fact that – engaging as it is – this is a suite rather than a through-composed entity.

Mosalini also proves to be a fine composer in his own right. His debt to Piazzolla – and the Argentine folkloric style of Piazzolla’s teacher Ginastera – is readily discernible in the toccata-like Tomá, tocá (‘Take it, play it’), and while Cien años doesn’t really stake out new territory, there’s something distinctive in the score’s harmonic restlessness and lyrical ache. Both works are skilfully crafted, in any case, and the entire programme is performed with gusto. Boston’s cooperative chamber orchestra not only play with élan for Gisèle Ben-Dor, they’re with Mosalini every step of the way.