The Enchanted Isles begins with a dream in which Oh, the narrator, returns to a voyage he made to the Galápagos (known as enchanted because of their dangerous currents that lured seamen to their deaths) ten years earlier. It was to be a voyage of enchantment, a lovers’ voyage, an eight-day cruise paid for by a magical win at roulette, the number eight coming up eight times in a row.

But Ah and Oh have separated in the meantime and so the memory dream is shot through with regret and also with a sometimes nightmarish vision of the ugly black volcanic islands where Darwin, observing mutations in finches, first came up with the idea of evolution.

In a multi-themed jazz rondo form, extracts from Darwin’s writings, geometry, chance and fate, giant tortoises complaining of human depredation, iguanas, jellyfish, blades of grass, extinct volcanoes, scuba diving and tender tourist conversation dance round and round. Occasionally the music breaks down and stutters, we are hearing dissonance as well as secret harmonies. This is a work of great lyricism, teasing humour and complex originality, a poem of everything.