If I’d encountered this in a blindfold test I suspect I’d have identified it as the work of Sinophile European composers from before the Second World War. That’s not a put-down, just an observation, and may be something of an irony since, in the April issue, I commented on the effort needed to adjust to some of the sounds and techniques in the excellent Qigang Chen album. Yiwen Jiang’s arrangements make for easy listening, even for the most Eurocentric ear, and again I hasten to stress that I don’t mean that as a put-down.

While several of the pieces are arrangements of folksongs, most are relatively modern compositions which make extensive use of traditional material or styles, although the tonalities are very Western. This is not so much because several of the compositions included piano in their original scorings, but because Jiang wanted to demonstrate that Chinese music can be played on Western instruments. On Scenes from the Bashu Country (derived from a piano suite, and entitled on this CD ‘Pictures from Bashu’) flute substitutes for first violin, but again Jiang opts for the Western sound, using European orchestral flute rather than the Chinese bamboo instrument.

The opening flourishes of Caprice could almost be by Copland, and you don’t need much imagination to conjure up some Martha Graham-esque choreography to accompany the New Year celebrations pictured in the first section, while the shade of Delius haunts the first of the two movements from Zu-Xin Jiang’s piano suite Temple Fair.

Throughout, the writing is fluid, nimble and glowing, matched by playing which is strong yet light in touch.