The French actress Arletty is famous for a riposte in Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord: ‘Atmosphère, atmosphère … est-ce que j’ai une gueule d’atmosphère?’ (best translated as ‘Does my face look like bloody atmosphere?’). As the former Artistic Director of the Radio France Philharmonic for nearly 20 years, Éric Montalbetti’s knowledge of the orchestra is writ large in this triptych of recent works. Soloists also have their place, most obviously in the Flute Concerto subtitled Memento vivere and in the half-hour-long ‘Symphonic Fantasy after Paul Klee’ Éclair physionomique, which features a solo violin and a prominent role for the piano (and the wind machine).

It must be said that the performances are such as any composer would wish for, and that the sound recording brings Montalbetti’s tapestries vividly to life. The composer cites influences (all French) from Debussy to Murail via Messiaen and Boulez, all of them peerless in their handling of the orchestra. But their music is also distinguished by clarity of concept (however complex), clear formal design and thematic argument (in the broadest sense) – qualities not easily discerned here. Melodic material (most audibly in the solo part of the Flute Concerto) consists often of scales, which go up or down, unendingly (Montalbetti calls them ‘modéchelles’) and, ironically, meanderingly; and where the risk of cliché is greatest (as in the writing for harp or the use of the wind machine in the Symphonic Fantasy) the results are bafflingly naive; beautifully crafted, but beneath the pellucid atmosphere, little solid ground.