I’ve had a good run with “concept” albums lately but this latest is a case of “What were they thinking?” The title Paris Bar is intended to (re) capture the zany but creatively fecund années folies with the frivolity, irreverence and fevered creativity of 1920s Paris. If you’re expecting the laconic glitter of Poulenc or Satie’s cool absurdist charm, look elsewhere. I don’t think I’m being either pedantic or prosaic in querying the fact that only one of the three composers featured (Jean Françaix) is French; the other two are Alexandre Tansman (despite the Franco-German name was a Jewish Pole and the Hungarian whose name I have to confess was completely new to me, László Lajtha (1897-1967). The latter two mixed freely with leading contemporary French composers (Tansman was taken under Ravel’s wing) but, try as I might, I can’t detect much idiomatic Gallic influence.

The Françaix Divertissement is beautifully performed (it was later orchestrated) and suggests a suitably brittle sophistication, although even here the Andante clearly brings back dark memories of the First World War which balefully...