Perhaps Tālivaldis Ķeniņš (1919-2008) would have had a better time of it in the record catalogue had his legacy not been cast adrift somewhere over the Atlantic. He was born in Latvia and studied in Paris but made a life in Canada, ending his career as a professor of composition at the University of Toronto.

It’s the Baltic region that’s putting things right. This second disc in Ondine’s survey of the composer’s orchestral works comes not far behind a mesmerising live recording of the composer’s Violin Concerto (1974), Concerto for Five Percussionists (1983) and unsettling Beatae voces tenebrae (1977) from the Latvian label Skani, issued in November – a gripping introduction to this urgent and serious musical voice for newcomers (it certainly was for me).

Clarity, severity, discipline and vitality are the watchwords with Ķeniņš, who wrote with logic, a genuine contrapuntal ability (so rare) and an unmistakably pained Baltic accent. The little glissando that ends his ‘song for orchestra’ Canzona Sonata – led by a solo viola and taken beautifully by the Royal Concertgebouw’s Santa ViŽine – could have come straight from Vasks. The pain of conflict, upheaval and exile linger everywhere. Often his structures are simple exercises in tension and release; journeys up and journeys down.

The Symphony No 6 is the standout piece here. It was written for Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in 1978 and takes as its motto the angular four-note theme from the C sharp minor Fugue from Book 1 of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. Ķeniņš isn’t the first to borrow it but his treatment of it stands up across a polyphonic tapestry in one movement but four discernable parts. The counterpoint is sturdy, whether hurtling at a prestissimo or straining through a slow movement seasoned with the sound of instrumentalists humming. The piece sounds laden with cryptic implications but the composer apparently advised not to ‘go looking for any deep meaning’. Fair enough.

Ķeniņš’s ear for what percussion instruments can do to enliven or unsettle an orchestral texture is what links the Sixth Symphony with the Fourth from 1973. This is a purposefully splintered, disjointed, brittle piece for exposed chamber orchestra, whose first movement ratchets up tension through layering and weaving before a mirror-image second freewheels down the other side of the hill, eventually losing power on the flat. It includes several moments of aleatoric writing. But the composer’s many innovations aren’t confined to these, and are all the more ear-catching for being placed in his characteristically laconic and disciplined musical context. These well-prepared, deep-feeling performances breathe life rather than simply preserving, which is no less than the music deserves.