Music by Jörg Widmann dominates this collection of new works, all of which the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra has played under its current principal conductor Paavo Järvi. The biggest Widmann piece here, Antiphon, has been recorded before, and the CBSO gave the work its British premiere in 2009; it seems no more convincing now than before, taking Giovanni Gabrieli's antiphonal canzonas as the starting point for noisy, and over-extended, gestural exchanges. In Armonica, from 2006, Widmann's historical reference is Mozart's works for glass harmonica; an accordion adds its distinctive tang to the textures, too, and the result is striking though never substantial. The other pieces here are significantly shorter and more effective. The best, most lingering of them is the third of Mauricio Kagel's orchestral Etudes, a pithy demonstration of how to transform witty charm into snarling menace in a few moments, though neither Beat Furrer's Chiaroscuro or Peter Ruzicka's Clouds outstays its welcome, either.
