In his booklet note to the five Beethoven piano concertos, recorded over the course of a week during July 2022 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Garrick Ohlsson writes: ‘Sixty years ago I learned my first Beethoven concerto and forty-four years ago I finally performed the last of the five.’ He goes on to say that he has performed each of them well over a hundred times. Donald Runnicles adds that whenever he and Ohlsson collaborate, time is never spent in conversation beforehand about tempos, phrasing or other details. They simply begin making music together and thus, in an exercise of intuitive symbiosis, arrive at their joint interpretation. The result, as heard here, is a spacious, unrushed account of these canonic works, forthright and yet deeply personal.

Of all pianists before the public today, Ohlsson’s technique is among the most honest. Every note is present and accounted for, nothing ever fudged, all within an exquisitely calculated proportionality. His approach is, above all, lyrical. In fact, listening to the slow movements of these concertos, one would be hard-pressed to name another performance that sings with greater contour, poise and clarity. Harsh or ugly sounds are simply nowhere to be heard, though Ohlsson’s dynamic palette is varied and immense. Trills fairly sparkle and passagework, however exciting, never obtrudes on the critical element of the sonata principle: thematic characterisation and development. That Ohlsson is one of the least exhibitionistic of musicians is evident in the cadenzas, which emerge organically from the fabric of the music and seem perfectly integrated into the narrative context. Meanwhile, the concluding rondos seem ready to burst with a sense of elation and sheer fun.

In the C minor Third Concerto, a sense of ebullience outweighs the tragic. The Emperor (No 5) is a resplendent play of light and colour, its Adagio a stroll through Elysian fields, with the finale an exercise in kinaesthetic delight. My favourite of this set, however, is the Fourth. Here soloist and conductor outdo themselves in the execution of Beethoven’s subtlest expression. Orchestral balances are exquisite, drama abounds, the finale is fairly rollicking and Ohlsson plumbs the depths of the Andante con moto with the utmost simplicity. This is a bouquet of Beethoven concertos like no other.