Max Richter’s recordings are often based on a central concept or idea – Vivaldi in The Four Seasons Recomposed (2/13), sonically induced relaxation and altered consciousness in Sleep, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Voices (9/20) or a particular plot and storyline in the composer’s many film soundtracks. In ‘Exiles’, Richter approaches the idea from a different angle, dusting off and repolishing a series of largely independent pre-existing works then grouping them under the theme of ‘music as-journey’.

Running through the album’s central spine is the title-track itself. Originally composed in 2014 for a Netherlands Dance Theatre production and written partly in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, the statement of a short Arvo Pärt-like theme is followed by 17 variations that gradually accumulate in intensity. The effect is not unlike Gavin Bryars’s Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. With every iteration of its gently looping theme, the meditative ambience of Exiles acquires a more powerful presence, culminating in an unexpectedly dramatic gear-change from minor to major harmonies at around the music’s three-quarter mark.

Richter’s careful control of the music’s architectonic space across its 30-minute-plus timespan is impressively handled and controlled but credit must also go to Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, who judge the ebb and flow of the music with astute poise and precision. They also make light of the knotty lines and sudden melodic twists and turns encountered in Flowers of Herself – another work that draws its material from a ballet production, this time for a 2015 Royal Ballet production for choreographer Wayne McGregor – while the now-ubiquitous On the Nature of Daylight, given a run out here for the first time in a new orchestral arrangement, benefits from a warmer blanket of sound provided by additional string layers.

Having produced several impressive recordings of the music of Pärt and Steve Reich, Järvi is never afraid to mix things up, adding more rhythmic muscle and edge to Richter’s post-minimalist style while mindful of the spiritual glow that shimmers across its sonic landscapes.