Having been mightily impressed with previous Arnold Rosner albums from Toccata Classics, I approached this newcomer of wind band works with high expectations. I was not disappointed, although the level of inspiration sometimes burns at lower temperatures than previous full-orchestral collections. The symphonic wind band medium – beloved of North American universities – may not be to everyone’s taste, but this fine, varied programme should entice the ear.

Rosner (1945-2013) was a relatively late convert to wind band composition, in his Eighth Symphony in 1988 (Naxos). So enamoured was he of its sound world that he penned seven further works between 1990 – the delightful Lovely Joan: Rhapsody on an English Folksong (sounding a touch like Hindemith discussing folk song with Vaughan Williams) – and 2005, when Rosner arranged the central movement of his Op 47 String Sextet (1970, rev 1997) as the marvellous hymn-fantasy Now Cometh the Redeemer. Based on the Lutheran chorale Nun komm’ der Heiden Heiland in Michael Praetorius’s version, Now Cometh is the masterpiece of nobility of spirit that the earlier De profundis (1991), a compositional tour de force in passacaglia form, does not attain. De profundis, however, is magnificent: the deepest and most rewarding work featured.

Rosner’s lighter touch shows throughout the opening triptych, Dances of Initiation (1990), and the grander Three Northern Sketches (2003). The acuity of Rosner’s textural imagination is well in evidence here and in the winningly vibrant tone poem Eclipse (1994). Only RAGA! (1995), a fascinating attempt to fuse Eastern and Western musical processes, does not quite come off, despite the committed advocacy of Density512, a crack new-music ensemble who audibly believe in Rosner’s music. Recorded in the Bates Concert Hall in Austin, Texas, the sound by Andrew DiRemiggio-Stoltz is first-rate. Well worth investigating.