The five items here are stage works, written as accompaniments to choreography of various types. If some of the music seems familiar this is because the bulk of the two largest works have appeared in other guises in the series: the orchestral The Maiden and Death (1938) as main coupling for the First Piano Concerto while the six movements of The Land and Sea of Greece (1948) surface as either the Four Images (1948) or components of the folk ballet The Sea (1948-49), released together last year.

The music featured here is predominantly in Skalkottas's late tonal idiom, but with little overtly in the manner of the Greek Dances, except in The Maiden and Death which also incorporates more advanced writing to telling dramatic effect. If The Land and Sea of Greece burns with less intensity than his major abstract utterances, it is more than mere occasional or illustrative music and casts a valuable side-light on his complex compositional make-up. Movements such as “The Vintage” and “The Grape Stomping” are terrifically effective, as are the six vignettes making up Island Images (1943). Curiously, both ballets feature a movement entitled “The Trawler” but - their “Bydlo”-like momentum aside - are utterly different.

Lorenda Ramou, the fifth pianist to grace the series, is fluent and well versed in contemporary styles. Her playing is full of verve and alive to the delicacy of Skalkottas's writing in the fillers Procession to Acheron and Echo as well as the major pieces. The BIS sound is of demonstration class, as usual. Recommended.