Ludomir Różycki is not exactly a household name: one of the very few other recordings of his music—some of them vintage transfers—also comes from the ever-enterprising Hyperion stable: his String Quartet with Szymanowski.

Jonathan Plowright and Lukasz Borowicz, ably abetted by the BBC Scottish Orchestra and the recording engineers, work the sort of magic associated with Sir Thomas Beecham in making the good second-rate sound first-rate: these are attractive performances of three works which span four decades but which all qualify as late-romantic, even the two concertos dating from the two World Wars. It seems hardly credible that such optimistic music as the second concerto could have been written when Różycki's native Poland was under Nazi occupation. The second movement of Concerto No 1 … is very moreish, as is the whole album.