The main strike against this CD is that it lasts barely 45 minutes. A pity, as the performances are very fine. Copland orchestrated eight of his 12 Emily Dickinson poems in the hope that the rebarbative audience reaction to the piano-accompanied versions might be a little less, well, rebarbative. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a new England Brahmin who became a recluse in her 30s and spent most of her life communicating with people through a closed door, making the Brontë sisters seem almost socially promiscuous.

Her eccentric metres and punctuation, which Copland has emulated in settings which are as jagged as they are lyrical, are nonetheless, suffused with intimations of death. The most appealing is the first Nature, the gentlest mother. The second sounds as though it could have composed by Webern. The last, the Chariot, is almost macabrely Mahlerian as it describes Death inviting her to ride beside him in a carriage. The demands of this music hold no apparent terror as Emma Matthews sails triumphantly through the variegated moods with aplomb.

The chamber version of the Appalachian Spring Suite is also very well played reflecting Copland’s original thoughts with its lucid textures and austerity which, nonetheless, never drives away...