This is an album haunted by ghosts and memories, but it’s also a testament to friendship and creative partnership. Pianist Joseph Havlat had the inspired idea of putting together pieces by Cassandra Miller, Michael Finnissy and Robert Schumann in an unlikely programme that nonetheless reaps rich rewards.

The first of those friendships is between Finnissy and Miller, once teacher and pupil, but here very much composing equals, in the shared four-movement Sinner, Don’t Let This Pass. Some of their email correspondence, shared in the booklet, proves fascinating, as they bounce off ideas and the piece comes to life. The discovery of Marian Anderson singing the spiritual of (nearly) the title proves a catalyst: ‘the notes of the tune, they’re just so darned great,’ writes Miller. They thread through the piece, splintered and elongated, varied and revered.

Miller also transcribes with ‘fetishistic loyalty the movements of another human being’ in Philip the Wanderer, which might sound unsettling, but refers to her computer-led transcription of Mandowa II by Zhukake Masingi, a Mozambican musician. Her studies of traditional Southeastern African music also play a role. The piece rumbles and dances with fascinating results.

The other friendship is between Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, as seen through the eyes and temporal distance of Finnissy. His RS Geistervariationen muse on Brahms’s Variations, Op. 23, which take their theme from Schumann’s own Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations). Schumann, so the story goes, believed the theme was sent to him by angels. Havlat might be best known for his performances of contemporary music – and they are exemplary here, but his sensitive, thoughtful playing well suits this tender Schumann work too.