Joseph Moog, Nicholas Milton and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie follow up their distinctive recording of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto (2/18) with the composer’s First. The opening ritornello is both full-bodied and texturally diverse, with particularly pungent brass and incisive bassoons to the fore. Both soloist and conductor press forwards in the lyrical F major theme, rather than ruminating over it. Moog eases his way into the cruelly exposed mini-cadenza in octaves, only to unleash the passage at full force.

Towards the end of the movement, notice, too, the contoured interplay between the soloist’s gentle triplets and the timpani strokes. The Adagio is broad yet well sustained, although Moog’s softest playing doesn’t match Arrau or Freire for shimmering delicacy. Listeners seeking a hard-hitting Rondo finale à la Serkin or Fleisher should look elsewhere, yet the musicians’ lithe, playful chamber-like interaction will win you over.

Moog inflects Op 119 No 1 to a lesser degree than others, letting the heartbreaking descending lines seemingly play themselves. The pianist’s slight accelerations impart an unsettling nervous energy to No 2’s short phrases in repeated double notes that convince more over multiple hearings. In the ‘Myra Hess’ C major No 3, Moog underlines the music’s legato and détaché contrasts, arguably to a fault, although his tasteful rhythmic flexibility welcomely circumvents No 4’s foursquare pomp. In short, Moog’s interpretations admirably supplement my personal reference recordings with Stephen Hough in Op 119 and Peter Donohoe/Yevgeny Svetlanov in the D minor Concerto.