The eventful and ultimately tragic life of Komitas (aka Soghomon Soghominian, 1869-1935) might well overshadow his legacy as collector of folk music from his native Armenia, though the recordings available testify to the dedication and sensitivity of these transcriptions. This latest disc focuses on his piano music, not least the Seven Songs (1911) that render the poetic sentiments of the original songs in limpidly affecting terms. The set of 12 miniatures which comprises Pieces for Children (1915) is even more distilled and refractory in its expressive essence, yet manages to conjure up a sense of time and place in the most evocative terms.

If these latter pieces feel akin to those of Bartók’s For Children, the more substantial Seven Dances seem closer to the Hungarian’s peasant-dance realisations in their more exploratory harmonies and frequent allusions to those indigenous instruments that likely played them. This creative process is taken further in Msho Shoror (1907), which Armenian region is represented by this ‘dance scene’ whose seven continuous numbers unfold as if a sequence of variations, their abstraction and astringency offsetting any tendency towards the merely descriptive. The fleeting Toghik (‘Small Dance’, 1915) offers an elegant rounding-off to the collection overall.

A highly appealing programme, then, which arguably benefits from its succinctness. Lusine Grigoryan renders it with an ideal poise and incisiveness, and she has been accorded spacious though never unfocused sound. Anyone who enjoyed the Komitas arrangements featured on an earlier ECM release (11/14) should certainly find the present disc comparably rewarding.