Whilst neither of the works on this disc is a world premiere, both will represent unknown territory to most people (as they certainly did to the present reviewer). Sergei Taneyev and Anton Arensky – born in, respectively, 1856 and 1861 – belonged to an in-between generation of Russian music, neither old enough to be coeval with Tchaikovsky, nor young enough to be colleagues of Rachmaninov and Scriabin. Arensky did take lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov (who spoke of him latterly with undisguised contempt) but owed much more to Tchaikovsky’s example. His variations on Tchaikovsky’s song Christ Had A Garden once enjoyed considerable celebrity as a Beecham-style lollipop.

His Piano Quintet dates from 1900, and it owes its biggest stylistic debt to Schumann, whom it evokes in its coursing ebullience and tendency to repetitive rhythms. At times Mendelssohn and Dvořák are intimated too. Charm and good humour prevail, even the slower sections being pensive rather than conspicuously sad. Not the most profound, original, or exotic achievement, then, but a welcome adjunct to the slender corpus of worthwhile pieces for this instrumental combination. It will inspire renewed sorrow that Arensky died (from tuberculosis aggravated by booze) when only 44 years of age.

Taneyev’s 1911 quintet...