Rarely is a disc so blissfully unconcerned with accounting for itself in the marketplace. While ‘Preludes in Times Past and Present’ has no great quality deficits – it’s extremely well played and the music is largely agreeable – why would anyone issue a series of short preludes by mostly unknown 18th- to 20th-century composers, all pieces being around three minutes in length, in a disc that’s in a constant state of beginning? One could hope for some unanticipated overall fusion, but such redemption isn’t forthcoming.

The disc begins with a promising cello flourish in Herzung’s Prelude to the monodrama The Adventures of Infamous Ruprecht, which then suddenly ends after some elfin activity, leaving you wondering if the title is longer than the piece. Tolkowsky’s Fantaisie-Prélude sounds like a piano concerto that’s about to blossom, but ends in less than four minutes. Sinding’s Marriage Overture has some nice dance music for trombone – for more than two minutes. Séraphin’s Prélude (en forme de pavane) could be a slow movement by Fauré. The booklet-notes say that Sauvage was a mystic of sorts, though his Prélude could be one of Messiaen’s with its dreamy, spare piano and long-held violin notes. Sabate’s Preludio for violin and piano could pass for Hungarian restaurant music before it suddenly gets interesting with some fun glissando activity.

But then, Phaedra Classics hardly has a conventional discography. Its ‘In Flanders Fields’ series (of which this disc is Vol 83) has offbeat items such as ‘Windows on the Bass Clarinet’. An earnest though anything-goes label? Too bad the recording quality is so distantly miked: what already seems like a distant musical world becomes even more so.