The Swiss composer Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865–1950) is best remembered for his development of Eurhythmics, which teaches the appreciation of music through movement. The buoyant miniatures recorded on this fourth album of his piano music document his fascination with dance, but nonetheless display a degree of variety: some are winsome and charming, others vigorous and folk-like, and occasionally they suggest echoes of some of his French contemporaries, not least Chabrier, Debussy, Fauré and Ravel.

Four of the composers on this recording met in real life – in Potsdam, in spring 1747. In this album they are reunited, joined by the flautist-composer who brings their encounter to life once more, the Swiss-born Markus Brönnimann. The stylistic contrasts between works three centuries apart serve to accentuate their strengths, the formal elegance of the earlier pieces underlining the expressive liberty of the recent ones. Brönnimann combines the two worlds with his luminous arrangement of one of the best-known of all classical compositions: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

The Krein family, with its origins in Lithuania, became a musical dynasty of considerable importance in Imperial and then Soviet Russia. The seven sons of its patriarch, Abram Krein, were all musicians, with Alexander and Grigory becoming respected composers, and Grigori’s son, Yulian, adding another generation of Krein compositions. The dances and cantillation of their Jewish background was an important part of their musical make-up, combining at various stages with Russian folk-music, Skryabinesque harmony and French Impressionism. All three shared a predilection for the clarinet, developing a repertoire for the instrument that is only now beginning to be discovered – in what one might call a Krein scene investigation.

For some decades in the middle of the twentieth century, Paul Creston (1906–85) was one of the most frequently performed of American composers, though his music has sunk from prominence in recent years. He was himself a fearsome pianist, and his Three Narratives are Lisztian concert essays that require freewheeling virtuosity. Rhythmicon is a ten-volume collection of 123 brief studies that examine various aspects of rhythm. Their difficulty grows as the series progresses, reaching its zenith in Volumes 7 - 10, where Creston presents 25 studies that range in mood from serious to light-hearted, from hymn-like introspection and calm to jagged, Bartokian energy.

For some decades in the middle of the twentieth century, Paul Creston (1906–85) was one of the most frequently performed of American composers, though his music has sunk from prominence in recent years. He was himself a fearsome pianist, and his Three Narratives are Lisztian concert essays that require freewheeling virtuosity. Rhythmicon is a ten-volume collection of 123 brief studies that examine various aspects of rhythm. Their difficulty grows as the series progresses, reaching its zenith in Volumes 7 - 10, where Creston presents 25 studies that range in mood from serious to light-hearted, from hymn-like introspection and calm to jagged, Bartokian energy.

This fourth instalment of the recent symphonic output of Fridrich Bruk (born in Ukraine in 1937 but a Finnish resident since 1974) brings two earlier works – from when Bruk was merely in his late seventies. His Symphonies Nos. 15 and 16 – both predicated on Bruk’s concern for the environment – inhabit the soundworld that has become familiar from his more recent symphonies: almost a stream of consciousness expressed through wildly inventive orchestral writing in a kaleidoscope of colour and counterpoint, sitting somewhere between Villa-Lobos and Pettersson in its profligate abundance.

Harpist to Queen Victoria, the Welsh composer John Thomas (1826–1913) wrote prolifically for his own instrument, both for solo harp and for duos of two harps or harp and piano – a combination where the different sounds of the two instruments enhance the clarity of the texture. Thomas’ own compositions use the elegant Romantic style of his own day, but he also left a generous legacy of transcriptions, with no fewer than fourteen Schubert songs recorded on this second volume of his complete duos for harp and piano. Although some of his music was intended for the Victorian drawing room, other pieces require a virtuoso technique – and all of it has a thoroughly engaging melodic appeal.

The Cremonese composer Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535/36–92) is chiefly remembered as the teacher of Claudio Monteverdi while, for well nigh 500 years, his own achievements were left to sit in the shadows. This third in a series of pioneering recordings from the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, reveals Ingegneri to have been one of the masters of his age, writing music of breathtaking richness and beauty: the works heard here combine learned, intricate counterpoint with the kind of sheer sonic thrill that brings a shiver of physical excitement. It is, of course, religious music, but it is also extraordinarily passionate, to a degree not previously heard, nor for centuries to come, until the rise of the great Romantic choral works.

This thirteenth release in the Toccata Classics exploration of the music of Ferenc Farkas (1905–2000) puts some of his chamber music with violin in the spotlight – bookended here by two works for string quartet. As with previous albums in this series, the music highlights the characteristics that make Farkas’ music so appealing: catchy tunes, transparent textures, buoyant rhythms, a fondness for Baroque forms and a taste for the folk-music of his native Hungary that marks him out as a true successor to Bartók and Kodály.

The enormously prolific Marie Joseph Erb (1858–1944) has somehow escaped the attention of posterity, although the quality of his music is on a par with contemporary organist-composers whose works are far better known. Erb’s long life – he heard Berlioz conduct in 1863 and was still composing in 1944 – was focused on Strasbourg, where he was active as pianist, organist and professor, though he had studied in Paris, with Fauré, Gigout, Saint-Saëns and Widor, and later with Liszt in Weimar. This first album devoted to his organ music in almost 30 years sandwiches four lyrical chamber works between two towering sonatas.

Composers who orchestrate the music of earlier colleagues often serve them best when they add something of themselves to the work in hand. These three orchestrations by the English composer Robin Holloway (b. 1943) demonstrate his profound understanding of and affection for two of the most important Romantic composers – and his re-imagining of Brahms’ Sonata for Two Pianos (which Brahms himself recast as his Piano Quintet) as a symphony gives one of the greatest of all compositions a wild and thrilling energy, making it also a masterpiece of our own age.

The British-based Naresh Sohal, born in Punjab in 1939, was the first person of Indian origin to make his mark as a composer of western classical music, writing works that displayed an usual kind of fusion - but not stylistic: his compositions often use the language of western modernism to explore the ideas of Hindu philosophy. The handful of piano pieces that he wrote between 1974 and his death in 2018 use musical analogies to address issues of perception, even existence itself, in a language that employs Xenakis-like extremes of dynamics and virtuosity, of clarity and density and of energy and calm.

The English composer Steve Elcock (b. 1957) spent years writing music without ever expecting it to be heard: based in rural France, he worked as a translator, composing in his spare time. The emergence of his orchestral and chamber music on Toccata Classics over the past few years has led to his being acclaimed as one of the most important composers at work today. This recording of his four works (to date) for string quartet confirms that judgement: all in single spans, they generate tension and energy in equal measure – animated, in one of them, by a lively sense of humour.

The organ music of Gerald Hendrie – born in England in 1935 but resident in France since 1996 – encompasses a huge range of influences, among them the organist-composers who went before him (not least Franck, Dupré and Messiaen), dodecaphony, mediaeval plainchant and modality and jazz. The resulting works are as varied as the styles that fed into them, from grandiose to gentle, from severe to whimsical, from lyrical to lively.

This sixth instalment in Christopher Guild’s survey of the piano music of Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) on Toccata Classics concentrates on works from the beginning of his career, most of it written after his decisive encounter with the music of Busoni. Although Stevenson had not yet moved to Scotland, the influence of Scottish folksong can be heard in some of these pieces, all of which are cast in the lyrical counterpoint that was a hallmark of Stevenson’s mature style.