A hint of menace lurks in the enigmatically moody period photograph of Paris adorning the cover of this two-disc compendium of string trios composed in France during the decade and more before the Second World War. Appropriately so, given its title, Avant l’orage, translates as ‘Before the storm’.

The French described the period as “les années folles” (the crazy years) and there is more than a hint of that delirium here even as ominous gathering clouds cast a thickening pall over these often charming and vivacious works. Their neglect in recent years is redeemed by the characterful championing of the Chicago-based Black Oak Ensemble.

Of especial interest are three first recordings. Not least the elegant Trio à cordes by Robert Casadesus, more familiarly known as a pianist and pedagogue. Composed in 1938, it boasts an affecting middle movement and a boisterous, dissonance-laced finale. From the same year, the variegated Trio “in the form of a divertissement” by Henri Tomasi, Marseilles-born to Corsican parents, artfully blends his Mediterranean inheritance with a Provençal folk melody. One of five...