Here are Chopin’s complete works for piano and orchestra, making comparison a marginal issue. Yet I have to say that even when set beside such luminaries and high-flyers as Rubinstein, Argerich and Perahia, Oleg Marshev more than holds his own. The First Concerto’s opening orchestral tutti is kept smartly on the move; and if the playing is more roughshod than refined, it never lacks enthusiasm for its less-than-grateful task and provides energised support for the outstanding soloist, for his relish of Chopin’s early brilliance and charm. Throughout, Marshev is never less than stylish and musicianly, delighting you with sudden personal flashes of warmth and character. His technique is effortless and assured in the scintillating roulades of all these works.

Hear him in the E minor Concerto’s finale, in his playful way with the hiccuping principal theme, a far cry from, say, Maria João Pires’s overly serious way with the same movement (though elsewhere she makes every teeming note worth its weight in gold). Again, Marshev’s full-blooded pianism is another world from Alexis Weissenberg’s leaden and humourless view. There is a joyful spring to his step in the ultra-Polish opening to the Krakowiak concert rondo, while in the Second Concerto – like the First Concerto given uncut, unlike in the bad old days – he is at his very best, with some highly personal touches. He spins off the ‘Là ci darem la mano’ Variations, a virtuoso teaser if ever there was one, putting even a pianist of his skill through his paces. The Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise brillante is equally successful so that after the conclusion, with much braying and trumpeting from the orchestra, you are left to feel that Marshev rides high in this well-recorded and admirably comprehensive album.