The orchestral diptych Hiver-Printemps, subtitled ‘two symphonic poems’, is among Ernest Bloch’s earliest orchestral compositions, and was his first important work to be performed: he himself conducted the premiere in January 1906, where the work – begun in Paris in February 1904 – had been completed. He thought well enough of it in later years to revise the orchestration in 1934, when he conducted the British premiere. To some extent the work is a testimonial to the various influences that the young Bloch had been absorbing in Germany and France. Hiver is comparatively lightly scored, its sonorities evoking the chill of winter. Printemps uses the full orchestra but begins delicately as a kind of woodland dance, developing into a gentle, scherzo-like 6/8 with playful woodwind writing.

Bloch’s later career was punctuated by a number of important concertante works: the traditional opposition of solo instrument and orchestra seemed to be the natural vehicle for the innate eloquence and passion of his musical personality, where the soloist took on the mantle of the prophet, the oppressed soul. The Concerto symphonique is a ‘symphonic’ concerto in several senses of the word – not simply because of its large scale and seriousness, but because Bloch’s thematic material consists of complex subject-groups made up of several short motifs which are always being developed and extended.

Though orthodox, arranged as a ternary-form scherzo with slower trio and coda, the Scherzo fantasque for piano and orchestra earns its ‘fantastic’ epithet through its parade of highly coloured ideas, most of which have a strong, incisive rhythmic aspect.