This latest issue on the Royal Concertgebouw’s own label is a celebration of its honorary conductor, Bernard Haitink. As a Brahms conductor his interpretations have long been admired for their humanity, a quality that radiates through both concertos on this set; they were recorded live in 2010 (Haitink a sprightly 81) and the audience is thankfully silent apart from applause at the end. Haitink’s enduring association with this music ensures that every gesture has a naturalness to it, drawing out an oboe line here, a clarinet phrase there. Temperamentally, Frank Peter Zimmermann is on exactly the same wavelength, finding a balance between heart and head, portamentos judiciously applied.

The slow movement is particularly rapt, Zimmerman imbuing the solo line with a sinuous, silky quality. He and Haitink are faster than Gergiev for Znaider, though the latter’s sound is so sheerly beautiful that it becomes a delight rather than an indulgence. Jansen is also particularly alluring here, lending the movement a confiding quality. The tempo for the dancing finale on this new set is again just so, Haitink and Zimmermann clearly enjoying its contrast between ebullience and inwardness.

The D minor First Piano Concerto is no less impressive, the opening orchestral tutti a mix of strength and poignancy, qualities that Emanuel Ax takes up in his very first entry. Ax is of course no stranger to this repertoire and he conveys a sense of weightiness and struggle while propelling the music forwards, but never becoming overly hard-driven. In that sense, he has more momentum than Sunwook Kim in his recent recording with Elder (reviewed above on page 32). Ax’s slow movement has a solemn yet confiding quality, the pianist caressing the lines without bending them out of shape, the big chordal passage near the end given with real passion. The finale is a tad slower than Kim’s but there’s so much colour from the orchestral players and so much variety of touch in Ax’s playing that the result is constantly engaging; this reading is up there with Freire, Lewis and Hough.

Emanuel Ax is reunited with players of the Concertgebouw for Schumann’s Piano Quartet. Again, this has many fine things in it, even if there are starrier string line-ups out there. Ax is the most generous of chamber musicians, retreating into the background to allow the string players to shine. The Scherzo is particularly delicious – hushed and with a breathless quality that contrasts vibrantly with its two Trios. Pacing is unerring throughout, and the ravishing melody introduced by the cello in the Andante cantabile here has a quiet nobility, even if there are a few instances of imprecise ensemble in this movement. They bring the work to a close not with the headlong acceleration of some ensembles but with a sense of joie de vivre which is very infectious.