The Emperor is the only Beethoven piano concerto not to have been premiered by Beethoven himself. By 1811 his deafness was too acute to make ensemble playing possible. As a consequence it is more closely annotated than any of its predecessors. The cadenzas are also fully integrated, including the thrilling cadenza-like passage at the start of the work where Beethoven views the home key from three different perspectives.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed this cycle so far that Pletnev's realisation of the opening cadenza is as wilful as it is wayward. Sifting through a shelf-full of recordings of the Emperor, I could find only one that remotely resembled this: Glenn Gould's, which is almost as eccentric and just as unconvincing. Of course, no pianist plays the exordium “straight”; the espressivo quaver and crotchet descents, the trills and magically judged cadences preclude such an approach. The great Beethoven pianists tend to take this in their stride, deploying the art that disguises art. Even those who have favoured a more moulded approach - an Arrau or a Rubinstein - manage to maintain a line and a focus.

Not so Pletnev whose hugely protracted peacock display is followed by a somewhat nondescript account of the orchestral ritornello. As Nalen Anthoni observed when reviewing the First and Third concertos in this series, conductor Christian Gansch doesn't have a great deal to say about the music. His soloist, alas, has far too much to say, often at the composer's expense.