The title of this new disc of chamber music by Mark Abel comes from a song-cycle set to texts by the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941). As he has demonstrated on previous recordings of songs and operas, the American composer treats words with shapely care, establishing vibrant and urgent contexts for the interaction of voice and instruments.

Tsvetaeva’s verses make their debut in English in the Abel settings, authoritatively performed here by the soprano Hila Plitmann. The songs take full advantage of Plitmann’s ‘wondrous voice’, which gleams in all registers, especially when she picks out notes in the stratosphere. Her attention to meaning suffuses every phrase and she is quick to add dramatic intensity when required, as in the emphatic ‘no’ that ends ‘O sorrow floods my eyes!’. Sarah Beck’s warm English horn and Carol Rosenberger’s glistening pianism are ideal partners.

Rosenberger is also a dynamic colleague in two pieces with the clarinettist David Shifrin. Intuition’s Dance takes the instruments through a series of conversations ranging from playful to conflicting, with the dance element portrayed in buoyant episodes. The musicians are joined by the cellist Fred Sherry in the Clarinet Trio, three movements of poetic, engaging and philosophical material that these superb players afford colourful and lyrical delineation.

Writing about The Elastic Hours, Abel states that the two movements ‘follow a near-seismographic path that strongly suggests the subconscious mind’s journey through the course of a day’. Whatever the suggestions, the music is compelling in narrative depth and energy, and the violinist Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker and pianist Dominic Cheli animate the discussions with a bounty of expressive allure.