Svend Erik Tarp was a contemporary of Vagn Holmboe and Herman D Koppel, the generation of Danish composers who came in between the likes of Riisager and Nørgård. The parallels with Riisager are obvious: Tarp spent much of his adult life working as an administrator and when it came to composition he was similarly interested in neoclassical elegance and translucence.

At the time of his Concertino for violin and orchestra (1932) Tarp was yet to fully embrace his Stravinskian principles but the fertile discipline of its slow movement, the most engaging of the three, proves that he moved in the right direction. Claus Røllum-Larsen’s detailed booklet note draws attention to the elements of New Objectivity in the work and its hesitant Romanticism speaks of a composer finding his way, though Stanislav Pronin’s performance goes all in. In the Concertino for flute and orchestra of five years later elegance takes pride of place even over mechanics. It is an attractive, assured piece, played with delicacy by the orchestra’s principal flute, Lena Kildahl.

Tarp’s Suite on Old Danish Folk Songs came in between the two and is even more revealing. We hear a composer trying to break free of the constraints of Nordic Romanticism and glancing in some fascinating Impressionistic directions as a result. There is plenty to listen to, again and again, in these four pieces but you can hear why the ballet suite The Dethroned Animal Tamer has been placed first on this disc. There is canny pastiche, dramatic clarity and theatrical colour in this 1942 work but more than anything there is a directness that is wholly Danish (as is each movement’s insistence on not outstaying its welcome). The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra play it with exuberance. A typically classy product from this label with bespoke artwork, born of the music, by Denise Burt. The booklet even whets the appetite with the contents of the next two instalments.