Edmund Finnis (b1984) teaches composition at the Royal Academy of Music and is Composer-in-Residence with the London Contemporary Orchestra, for whom he wrote the fine string-orchestral essay Between Rain (2014), included on this NMC Debut disc. The only other music of his on disc I can trace are Variation 10, the penultimate item of the collaborative Panufnik Variations (LSO Live, 6/16) and the viola study Veneer (London Sinfonietta, 2/13).

These six works provide a good perspective of his compositional range. The biggest, though not the longest piece is The Air, Turning (2016), a full-orchestral tone poem taking its title from a line in Robin Robertson’s poem ‘Finding the keys’. As a study in sound, of the impact of sound upon the air, it is fascinating but has a preludial feel and breaks off just as one expects a larger movement to follow. This is a recurrent trait of Finnis’s style.

Much of his music is quiet and texturally spare, not unlike Laurence Crane’s but with a good deal more going on – as in Elsewhere (2015), where Eloisa-Fleur Thom’s beautifully played violin is ‘accompanied’ by reverb only, or the delicate Four Duets for clarinet and piano (2012), exquisitely played by Mark Simpson and Víkingur Ólafsson. Finnis’s acute ear for sonority is demonstrated in Parallel Colour (2015), seven brief movements (only the central fourth has an extended span, just over four minutes) employing mirror techniques and exquisitely scored. However, Finnis does not display instrumental cleverness merely for its own sake, as Shadows Lengthen (2015), four movements towards a violin concertino, amply confirm.

The performances throughout are nicely done and NMC has engineered them (made at four locations at different times) very well to sound of a piece. An intriguing disc of a composer to watch.