In a break with protocol, you’ll find a pretty honest appraisal of the music on this disc in its own booklet. ‘What composer who wrote modern music in all seriousness would ever have given a symphony the nickname “bitonal”?’ asks annotator Jurjen Vis. Moving on to the symphony numbered 21, Vis addresses Röntgen’s main theme: ‘nowhere does this first subject receive the fugal treatment it deserves.’ As for Röntgen’s Serenade, Vis lets another composer’s lukewarm response do the talking: Grieg apparently described the Serenade as ‘very lyrical’ but ‘had nothing more to say about it.’

And there isn’t much more to say. The Serenade often resembles clean, functional but servile ballet music until it finally generates something of a frisson. The symphonies here are rather more interesting but no less frustrating. Röntgen was trying to prove a point in his Bitonal Symphony and as a result the bitonal elements stick out like a sore thumb. That’s nobody’s idea of advancing tonality, particularly when the symphony’s most heartfelt passages have clearly rushed for the cover of a single key. Most frustrating is that there’s a finely spun piece lurking somewhere within. If Röntgen had forgotten about bitonality altogether it might well have emerged.

Vis describes Symphony No 21 as ‘earnest’ and he’s spot-on once again. Röntgen can’t keep up his Brucknerian churning and transitioning for long and we end up with a theme-and-variations that’s heavy-handed and heavy-footed too. Sometimes Röntgen has a neat idea but his orchestration isn’t imaginative enough to do it justice, even though the attractive-sounding Frankfurt orchestra give it their all. One for hardcore Röntgen fans, or anyone who wants a CD-size reproduction of Van Gogh’s gorgeous Moonlit Landscape.