In Jirí Belohlávek’s previous disc of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto (Supraphon), he provided his fluent and poetic soloist Ivan Moravec with a relatively anonymous accompaniment. For the most part here he has focused his conception, letting the assertive brass-writing in the outer movements rip, encouraging the timpani and eliciting lovely, sustained string-playing in the Adagio. Still, next to the forward momentum, textural diversity and cogent architecture one hears from Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Decca, 9/06), Belohlávek and his BBC forces sound as if they’re phoning it in, so to speak. Cédric Tiberghien makes a rambling impression in the composer’s lengthy introspective stretches, largely because he doesn’t support his tenutos and rubatos with a strong basic pulse. As a result, his first-movement solos appear slower than they actually are. He tends to bear down on each beat of the Adagio, in contrast to the long-lined fluidity with which pianists as different as Freire, Serkin, Fleisher and Grimaud shape the music. At least Tiberghien and Belohlávek show some energetic rapport in the Rondo.

In the Haydn Variations, Harmonia Mundi’s slightly diffuse sonics may contribute to No 8’s blurry contrapuntal impact, the theme’s lack of transparency, or No 3’s oozing legato phrasing. As for No 2’s sluggish tempo, don’t blame the engineers, that’s the conductor’s call. Granted, he pulls it all together for a dynamic and beautifully paced finale: too little, too late. In other words, Belohlávek and the BBC yield to Marin Alsop’s recent recording with the London Philharmonic (Naxos, 3/07); that boasts clearer differentiation of orchestral strands and more incisive rhythm, as well as superior engineering.