Casting an eye down the track list – Pál Hermann, Géza Frid, Zoltán Székely – you might be forgiven for saying, “Who dem?”

We shouldn’t be surprised these days to rediscover artists whose work fell victim to the political turmoil of the first half of the 20th century, but this Hungarian triumvirate is worth more than a passing glance.

A quick check of the catalogue suggests they have received only minimal attention in their homeland. Hermann’s name pops up on the pioneering British Toccata label, but other than that, relative silence.

The three first met as young Hungarian-Jewish musicians in 1920s Budapest while studying at the Franz Liszt Academy under Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók. Despite political tensions, economic instability and antisemitism at home, their international careers flourished. All three relocated to the Netherlands for a while, but the outbreak of the Second World War took a terrible toll. In 1944, Hermann was deported from France to Lithuania never to return. Frid, the most successful and prolific of the three, survived the war, remaining in the Netherlands until his death in 1989. Székely, who...