Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra/Kirill Ershov Naxos 8.572400****

Boris Tchaikovsky (1925-96), no relation to the famous 19th-century composer, was a pupil of Shostakovich and numbered Mstislav Rostropovich and Kirill Kondrashin among his musical advocates. His Four Preludes are chamber orchestral arrangements of a 1965 song cycle to texts by Joseph Brodsky that was still banned when the arrangements were made – and played – in the mid 1980s. The vocal origin remains vivid in music that flits between the direct and the oblique. The remainder of the disc is given over to charming music written for radio productions of the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. The craftsmanship is delectable, which echoes of Glazunov and Liadov, and well-sustained eruptions of quasi-slapstick. See url.ie/57c6