This latest recording in the MSO Live series features premieres of two spectacular instrumental showcases that, despite their differences, find common ground. Here we have the world premiere of Paul Stanhope’s Piccolo Concerto recorded in Hamer Hall in August 2012, alongside the Australian premiere of British composer Thomas Adès’ Polaris.

In the latter work, Adès has recourse to the ancient technique of canon, while the 12 tones of the chromatic scale keeping coming back to a “magnetic” central pitch in the same way stars seemed to move around the North Star. It’s a colourful, highly textured and spatially inventive work with an impressive climax and moments of reflective beauty, and receives a highly compelling performance by the MSO under Markus Stenz.

In his two-movement Piccolo Concerto, Paul Stanhope uses another ancient technique – the chorale prelude – with the first movement partly based on the hymn tune Love Unknown; the second movement is more overtly virtuosic, especially its cadenza, which the MSO’s Principal Piccolo Andrew Macleod dispatches with the same crisp élan he displays throughout. Benjamin Northey and the MSO bring out Stanhope’s logically rigorous yet unashamedly lyrical writing while giving Macleod room...