Conductor Steven Sloane has been taking up the cause of Joseph Marx, perhaps better known for his songs than for his orchestral music. Throughout his life (1882-1964) Marx remained a firm upholder of the great Viennese classical tradition, a loyalty that came to dominate an earlier, more chromatic and sumptuous idiom. These three pieces are not so much pastiches as re-entries into a world whose manners and techniques he well understood. The Partita is the most obviously classical, though it has an individual flavour chiefly through Marx’s skilfully assimilated use of some of the old church modes. The Sinfonia and in particular the Serenade are amiable reflections on a world which Marx did not believe was lost – even in the 1940s – but perhaps the more urgently needed recreating. Sloane and the Bochum players give the music an agreeable poise and stability; it falls easily on the ear, and could give much pleasure.