This is Toccata Classics’ fourth CD of music by the American Arnold Rosner (1945-2013), and I think it is the best so far. Previous issues have established Rosner’s compositional landscape and style, a synthesis of elements stretching from the Middle Ages to late 20th-century postmodernism: modal harmony, pre Bachian counterpoint, free tonality and a sound world of late-Romantic opulence.

The earlier orchestral volumes (there is also a chamber disc, TOCC0408) focused on a variety of works defining Rosner’s range, from his Second Piano Concerto to the harrowing From the Diaries of Adam Czerniakow (every bit as powerful as A Survivor from Warsaw; TOCC0436), to the ingenious and most striking Unravelling Dances, a deliciously ‘mad’, arhythmic bolero (TOCC0465). This new release presents two powerful utterances separated by the delightfully freewheeling Tempus perfectum (1998), an orchestral canzona in 9/8 time. The orchestration and modal harmonies may suggest Hovhaness to some listeners, but – as with those of Vaughan Williams in the darkly atmospheric Nocturne (1978) – these are fleeting; much more important is the way the music develops, in directions quite unlike either of those forebears.

The back-cover description of the 38-minute Sixth Symphony (1976) as ‘monumental’ might seem a little over-the top (the term is more usually applied to Mahler’s, Bruckner’s or the longer Shostakovich symphonies), but when you hear Rosner’s music you will understand exactly why. The monumentality here is not about length or even orchestral power, of which it has bucketloads, but expressive content. The symphony has a feeling of immensity, from the outer movements’ volatility to the central Adagio’s ‘troubled calm’, to the turbulent climax and spent coda. The performances by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Nick Palmer are eloquent and virtuoso in equal measure, and Jonathan Allen’s sound is unobtrusively sensational. Strongly recommended.