It is good to welcome a Turkish orchestra as strong and refined as the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic. It is apt that the attractive Hindemith work is included, when Hindemith in the immediate post-war period acted as adviser to the Turkish government on developing Western music in the country. The timing of the present issue may also have a political purpose, when Turkey is eager to be accepted into the European Union, here demonstrating its European links.

Despite its cumbersome title, Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis is the most immediately attractive of his orchestral works, full of colourful writing enhancing striking themes largely drawn from the incidental music that Weber wrote for a play on the theme of Princess Turandot.

The Hindemith is delightfully refreshing in juxtaposition with both the Respighi and Florent Schmitt works, which in their orientalism regularly suggest Hollywood film music. That especially applies to the Respighi, which was adapted from a cantata he had written earlier involving some 100 performers, with choirs and a narrator as well as a very large orchestra. The composer’s reduction of this into a suite of four movements – “Dream of Solomon”, “War Dance”, “Dance of Belkis at Dawn” and “Orgiastic Dance” – was designed to be more manageable.

Florent Schmitt’s The Tragedy of Salome is a suite of six movements developed from a dance-mime involving a small orchestra. Four of the six movements in this expansion are dances, skilfully orchestrated, surrounding the evocative “The Enchantment of the Sea”. The two final movements are both entitled “Dance of Fear”, bringing a spectacular close to the whole work. Drawing polished playing from the orchestra, Vienna-born conductor Sascha Goetzel could hardly be more persuasive in all three works, which are treated to a brilliant, well-balanced recording to match.