Brad Mehldau and the Grammy Award-winning, New York-based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra toured Europe, Russia, and the US with Variations on a Melancholy Theme (including a 2013 performance at Carnegie Hall) after having been originally commissioned by this internationally renowned 34-piece collective.

The structure is a ‘Theme and Variations’ and the former is perhaps more wistful than melancholic as indicated by the title. As dark as it becomes, there's always a generous slice of redemption in Mehldau's work and this is no exception. The main theme is chamber-like, with hints of jazz, Beatles-ish pop and country music, quite reminiscent of the kind of tunes he wrote on 2010's Highway Rider.

Mehldau has in this work assimilated the kind of 20th century giants who composed what's known as symphonic jazz: Milhaud, Copland, Bernstein, Stravinsky and Gershwin among them, as well as his ‘Romantic’ heroes such as Brahms.

Use is made of the more marginal colours from the orchestra palette with features for bassoon and French horn included, and the craftsmanship and its execution is first rate.

For the most part Mehldau is content to play a role equal to that of the other orchestral instruments although he has his piano concerto-like moments too. In the second half, Mehldau arrives home, his blues and jazz-toned chamber arrangements culminating in a lavish cadenza, a kind of improvisational summing up, that's actually more darkly ‘romantic’ in style than it is jazz. Variations on a Melancholy Theme is more likely to win him over the classical rather than jazz hardcore, but Mehldau's signature is writ large enough that his real fans won’t be disappointed.