The Franco-Lebanese composer and poet Bechara El-Khoury is a master of orchestration, and defines his artistic credo as that of ‘setting to music human nature and its passions’. This third Naxos disc of his orchestral works features the Piano Concerto, which evolves rhapsodically in a succession of contrasting sections, the lyrical Méditation poétique and two Poems for piano and orchestra, each inspired by the music of the Maronite, Catholic and Byzantine churches in the Lebanon, heard during the composer’s youth. It also includes two smaller-scale Serenades, which reveal the more contemplative and intimate side to El-Khoury’s music.