Interest in Tansman’s music in recent years has led to a large number of recordings but none so far as I am aware of any of his ballets has yet made it on to silver disc. Both Sextuor (1923) and Bric à brac (1935) have whimsical scenarios by the composer’s friend Alexandre Arnoux. Sextuor is an 18-minute ‘ballet-bouffe’ centring on a love triangle between a flighty flute, a gigolo-like violin and a staid but by no means dispassionate cello. There are important supporting roles for a trombone, a drum and – opening and closing the ballet – a tuning fork.

Tansman’s music is a delight, by turns light and airy, dark and passionate – not without sombre episodes (the course of true love does not run smooth, alas, for the cello) – and artfully scored. The harmonic idiom may not seem overly advanced now but for the time was, like all of his music during this period, enough to outrage critics in his native Poland. ukasz Borowicz directs a brilliantly sure footed account.

A violin plays an important role in Tansman’s much larger Bric à brac, set in a street market where a pair of thieves are distracted from their nefarious endeavours when one of them falls madly in love with the shopper, Diana. In parallel, a poor busker repairs an old violin (actually a Stradivarius) and in trying it out transports all present into a magical otherworld. Tansman’s music is more romantically inclined, Gershwinesque in places, with a wonderfully over-the-top waltz at its climax. Wojciech Michniewski’s account, recorded back in 2002, catches its atmosphere to a T. If neither score is world-shakingly great music, both are expertly crafted, beautifully scored and fun to hear, especially in such clear sound.