The latest in the Nash Ensemble’s periodic concerts devoted to new works brought no fewer than five world or UK premieres in a programme of music by six of Britain’s leading composers.

The most substantial piece was A Constant Obsession by Mark-Anthony Turnage, making a return to form after a series of lacklustre scores. The new work sets poems about aspects of love by five poets, beginning in anticipatory mode with Keats’s Love Expected and ending with the bleak Love in Death of Tennyson.

In the latter, Turnage achieves a keening effect by sounding alto flute and clarinet in unison, underpinned by a drone bass of horn, violin and viola. Mark Padmore was the poignantly expressive soloist, Martin Brabbins the able conductor.

Colin Matthews’s The Island also makes evocative use of an alto flute with unearthly string sonorities and plucked harp and piano, all combining to conjure the elusive but sensuous quality of Rilke’s verse. The mezzo Loré Lixenberg did admirably at short notice.

Inspired by Rothko canvases, Michael Berkeley’s Piano Quintet begins with microtones splitting off from a high D and ends by building to a peak of intensity dominated by a similar high note. On the way, it plays effectively with musical ideas that can either be heard as reflecting the textures of painting or as pure music.

Julian Anderson’s Prayer for viola solo is often percussive, obsessive, even abrasive. Lawrence Power persuasively integrated the contrasting elements, dissolving them in an overriding arc.

Huw Watkins’s Trio for horn, violin and piano foregrounds the first two which are sometimes peaceably entwined but often locked in mortal embrace. This single movement draws steadily to a dramatic climax — perhaps a token of Watkins’s recent foray into opera.