A pianist of formidable capabilities and a composer who has already written for a number of respected performers and ensembles, Timo Andres is evidently a figure of the moment and this second release from Nonesuch brings his creative and executive concerns into engaging focus. Of the two ‘original’ works featured here, Home Stretch falls into three continuous sections moving seamlessly yet cumulatively from atmospheric stasis, via pulsating dance, to a cadenza-led race to the finish with earlier ideas impulsively transformed; Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno uses songs from two of the alternative-pop Svengali’s seminal albums in an eventful fantasia whose opening drone-like harmonies and increasing rhythmic intricacy both necessitate and receive the keenest of responses from the Metropolis Ensemble.

Between these pieces comes Mozart’s Coronation Concerto, nowadays the least performed of his mature concertante works (though it was a viable template for piano concertos throughout the initial half of the 19th century), in this ‘recomposition’ by Andres which replaces the sketchy left-hand part as found in the score with his freely recreative approach. This is never less than provocative in conception, above all in first- and third-movement cadenzas that take Mozart’s salient ideas in new and questing directions, but the disjunctive harmonies between soloist and orchestra feel a little contrived. Andres is an uninhibited exponent, though one cannot help but recall Eric Morecambe’s retort to André Previn: ‘They’re the right notes, but they’re not necessarily in the right order.’