Although remembered primarily for his Chopin recordings, Miosz Magin (1929‑99) focused increasingly on composition after settling in Paris in 1960. Prolific in the orchestral and piano domains, his music variously combines a harmonic sensuality redolent of Szymanowski with a rhythmic incisiveness akin to Grażyna Bacewicz or the mid-century French neoclassicists.

Those wistful yet capricious strains of the Andante (1963) indicate where Magin was headed, yet the Third Piano Concerto (1970) opens with an impassioned rhetoric with no mean rhythmic or fugal dexterity before an Adagio whose confessional quality recalls late Bartók, prior to the finale’s toccata-like dash. Its scoring for strings and timpani is pursued in the Stabat mater (1973), whose hymnal rumination builds to a short-lived yet fervent climax, whereas Concerto rustico (1975) pits violin against similar forces for music whose bracing neoclassical outlines are imbued with a folk-like astringency that reaches its apogee in the keening eloquence of the Andantino. Nostalgie du pays (1982) is a limpid as well as touching miniature, qualities such as pervade the Four Vocalises (1985) with their elegant interplay between violin and piano that itself underlines Magin’s encouragement of young musicians.

This was evidently a labour of love for pianist Lucas Debargue, his advocacy doubtless inspiring Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica to give of their customary best. Sound and presentation leave nothing to be desired, and this release makes for an attractive overview of music that could well inspire a younger generation.