Chopin’s two oft recorded piano concertos are here presented in the order of their composition (ie No 2 followed by No 1). Nikolai Luganksy has a formidable reputation as Chopin pianist – his Opp 10 and 25 Etudes are among the best – but I cannot honestly say these performances recorded in the boomy acoustic of Polish Radio’s Witold Lutosławski Studio are wholly successful. And the competition is fierce. In the first two movements of the F minor (No 2), Lugansky’s attenuated phrasing and pointless lingering (try the opening of the second movement taken at practice speed) become quite irritating, though he redeems himself somewhat in the finale with some robust (at last) and sparkling playing.

If I cite (and not for the first time in these pages) Josef Hofmann’s live broadcasts of the two concertos with Barbirolli from 1936 and 1938, with their substantially faster tempi throughout, the music ebbs and flows in an almost improvisatory narrative, played with far greater imagination. Lugansky sounds mannered and self-conscious by comparison. Ingrid Fliter, whose recent recording for Linn I heartily welcomed in the March issue, adopts similar tempi to Lugansky but the unaffected simplicity of her approach allows the music to speak for itself without, as it were, superfluous commentary. And if even she cannot match Hofmann in the Romanze of the E minor (he can make you hold your breath), hers is a more profoundly moving and poetic account than Lugansky’s uncharacteristically wooden conception. Fliter also has the benefit of the suave support of Jun Märkl and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra recorded in state-of-the-art sound. On this occasion Lugansky, I fear, is a worthy also-ran.