Lachlan Skipworth may well have the most immediately attractive composing voice in Australian music. Certainly Altiora Peto, his first release on ABC Classic, is shot through with what is fast becoming his signature: a poetic lyricism punctuated by bursts of passion and drama that always resolve into beguiling melodic accord.

The title translates as “I seek higher things”, an ambition realised here in four works, new to disc, that differently court the transcendent. There’s something of the enrapturing mysticism of the American Alan Hovhaness in the titular work, an evocative tripartite concerto for trumpet (David Elton) and strings (Sydney String Virtuosi). The outer movements contrast dialogues between solo instrument and ensemble, the middle movement is marked by the mournful mahogany burnish and doleful beauty of the flugelhorn.

Genevieve Lacey’s hushed, haloed bass recorder in the string quartet-accompanied Cavern, cast in four through-played movements, betrays Skipworth’s time in Japan studying the shakuhachi. Again, it’s a persuasive exercise in mood-setting that is variously playful and plaintive.

The 11-minute three-part Mass for Easter...