Complementing its Chopin release from Cortot and Moiseiwitsch, Naxos now offers the first disc in a series devoted to Arthur Rubinstein’s recordings dating from the mid-1940s to the ’50s. Mercifully uncut, unlike Rubinstein’s previous discs of both concertos with Barbirolli, these are astonishing performances, occasionally, particularly in the F minor Concerto, content simply to astonish. Here there is an almost arrogant dismissal of all difficulties and a prima donna stance sometimes hard to square with some of Chopin’s more delicate and ornate confidences. In the scintillating coda Rubinstein takes his bravura to a spine-tingling edge, but in, for example, the Larghetto’s central storms there is a brusque, streamlined indifference to the music’s finer qualities. In the E minor Concerto, while recognisably the same pianist, Rubinstein is altogether more subtle, following his characteristic exuberance and extroversion with playing of a rapt magic and delicacy. The music may be sent smartly on its way by both conductor and soloist, but the patrician ease, nonchalant glitter and authority of Rubinstein’s playing are uniquely his to command. These are both extraordinary performances by an extraordinary pianist though of the two, the E minor Concerto is the more affecting. Mark Obert-Thorn’s restoration of the 1953 sound is a model of remastery though even he cannot make the 1946 F minor Concerto sound less than cramped.