To title a piece The Piano Concerto with the definite article up front may seem a tad self-aggrandising. Yet Dieter Ammann’s ear for sonority and orchestral texture operates on such a high and imaginative level that perhaps he deserves a royal ‘the’. The work begins with hammered-out A naturals that soon morph into splattering piano chords dovetailed by percussive fallout. Sweeping arpeggios that sound like Tchaikovsky on amphetamines give way to motoric writing where the pianist and fellow orchestral colleagues subtly intertwine, punctuated by brass rejoinders. Extended solo passages run the gamut from petulant dissonance at both ends of the keyboard to blatantly Romantic padding.

Years ago jazz virtuosos Oscar Peterson and Cecil Taylor shared a concert at Carnegie Hall. They didn’t play together, of course, but if you want to imagine what that might have sounded like, go to track 2, around the seven-minute mark. By way of contrast, Ammann provides plenty of lyrical respite, but will offset the slow-moving piano lines with orchestral backgrounds that could be described as the aural equivalent of Salvador Dalí’s melted clocks. And just when you think a sequence goes on too long for what it has to say, Ammann pulls yet another dazzling gesture out of his proverbial hat. Although I’ve long admired Andreas Haefliger’s intelligent virtuosity, here he unleashes his inner Tasmanian devil, while Susanna Mälkki and the Helsinki Philharmonic suffuse the music with prodigious colour and staggering precision.

Colour and precision similarly inform Ravel’s Left-Hand Concerto. Instead of the murky mystery one usually gleans from the opening lower-register activity, the thematic kernels emerge in cogent perspective, while the dialogue between brass and strings builds to an intense climax leading into Haefliger’s powerfully assured opening cadenza. In the central march, one may miss the tart, unblended orchestral image and lithe wit that always lead me back to the classic Monique Haas/Paul Paray/Orchestre National de France recording (DG, 11/65), yet BIS has the unquestionable sonic advantage.

For sheer textual honesty and attention to articulation, Haefliger and Mälkki leave none of Bartók’s Third Concerto’s concertante-orientated soloist/ensemble interplay unaccounted for, and the Adagio religioso’s climactic evocations of birdsong convey a wide-eyed sparkle and sense of fantasy that is easier to hear than for me to describe. If Haefliger’s scrupulous phrasing of the first movement’s eloquent unison lines doesn’t match the speech-like syntax and atmospheric inflections distinguishing Géza Anda’s reference recording (DG, 5/61), such a quibble applies to most other pianists! In short, the Ravel and Bartók make formidable impressions but the Dieter Ammann Concerto will leave you limp with awe.