The recent death of Alexander Knaifel may bring reappraisal of one who had little exposure in the UK. Gennady Rozhdestvensky once revived his early opera The Canterville Ghost, but its quizzical take on post-war modernism is well removed from that of Knaifel’s later music.

Drawing its text from the concluding chapter in the Song of Songs, Chapter Eight (1993) was commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich, who pointedly summarised it as ‘a composition for church, choruses and cello’; apt as the cello often plays an obbligato role to that of the various choruses with their contribution, in turn, being determined by the acoustic in which this music is heard. Although Canticum Canticorum is unique in the Old Testament through its emphasis on human love, little, if anything, of that physicality is evident here – Knaifel rather favouring a meditative and distanced approach notable less for any evolution than a continually shifting density of texture sustained over 32 continuous sections; the 14 verses being freely reordered or condensed to result in a formal and expressive ‘development’ that is subliminal at most.

This recording with Patrick Demenga has the advantage of being recorded in an acoustic, of Lucerne’s Jesuit Church, wholly appropriate to the music. Rostropovich’s account (under the alternative title Make Me Drunk with Your Kisses) retains its authority and its division as seven sections, as opposed to three on ECM, aids navigation on initial hearings, but the acoustic of Washington’s National Cathedral lacks the focus and definition evident here. A pity it took 16 years for release, but Knaifel was present at this performance and was doubtless pleased.