Lorenzo Gatto is well equipped to play the Beethoven Concerto. His clear, ringing tone, coupled with an ability to play the exposed high passages with pure intonation, are joined to an expressive, unmannered style that can transmit the work’s grandeur and nobility. It’s a shame, therefore, that this issue doesn’t merit a wholehearted recommendation. The main trouble is the orchestral sound: whether because of the recording or due to balance within the band, the effect in forte is quite brash and unyielding, with trumpets often too loud and other sections, notably the string basses, given insufficient weight. The smaller orchestration of the Concerto’s Larghetto and the two Romances sounds much more satisfactory and these are the most pleasing tracks of the programme.

In the Concerto’s outer movements I was troubled by a certain lack of momentum, in particular by the time taken at the end of phrases. Isabelle Faust’s recording with Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart takes very similar tempi but soloist and orchestra combine to give a buoyant sense of forward motion missing in this new performance. Another criticism is that the dotted rhythms in the Concerto’s middle movement and in the First Romance in G are surely excessively detached; the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Frans Brüggen, accompanying Zehetmair, give an object lesson in playing these passages.

Despite these strictures, it’s well worth hearing Gatto’s strong, communicative performances and, in the Concerto, his splendid accounts of the Kreisler cadenzas.