Felicja Blumental was born in Warsaw in 1908 and died in Tel Aviv in 1991. Although immersed in the standard repertoire, she was a pioneer champion of neglected repertoire and, in that respect, a forerunner of Michael Ponti on Vox and the current Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series.

This is a five-CD box‑set, Vol 1 of what I take to be the initial instalment of all Blumental’s concerto recordings garnered from various sources, though Brana is lamentably shy of offering any provenance for them, they are culled from Decca, Turnabout and Vox discs from the 1950s and ’60s as well as 78s on labels I have not been able to identify. An outfit called Dureco/Ars Classica issued a set of 12 Blumental concerto discs in the early 1990s; the repertoire of some of these is duplicated here.

That’s the background. As to the performances and recording quality, both are variable but their shortcomings are more than compensated for by their merits. The highlight for me is the Concerto in Brazilian Forms by Hakel Tavares (1896-1969), a melodic, derivative and thoroughly enjoyable three-movement romp in which Blumental is partnered by the LSO and Anatole Fistoulari no less. This is followed by Albéniz’s Spanish Rhapsody, an undistinguished piece which has the misfortune of being in execrable sound (the piano distorts) and being accompanied by the ragged Filarmonica Triestina under Luigi Toffolo. Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No 3, on another disc, labours under the same disadvantages. Preceding this, however, is Villa-Lobos himself conducting the Vienna SO in his Fifth Concerto, a work written for Blumental, recorded live in 1955. Clearly authenticity here overrides sonic considerations but the orchestra is backwardly placed. For the full measure of the work turn to Cristina Ortiz with the RPO and Miguel Gómez-Martínez. In between come four charming encores by Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri and Mignone taken from shellacs.

Well worth hearing are Blumental’s accounts of Czerny’s A minor Concerto and Ries’s C sharp minor, the latter hardly less sparkling than Christopher Hinterhuber’s new recording in superior sound (Naxos). Beethoven’s transcription of his Violin Concerto (the Larghetto and rondo movements allotted a single track for some reason), the early D major Concerto movement and the Rondo in B flat come off well, while the lesser worth of variations by Czerny and Vogler and Stamitz’s F major Concerto on a fifth disc are entertaining enough.