A full 16 years elapsed between the first and second volumes of Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players’ exploration of the piano concertos of Johann Baptist Cramer (Chandos, 3/03; Hyperion, 7/19). Thankfully we have only had to wait a little over a year for the final disc in the series, presenting two of Cramer’s earliest concertos alongside one from the peak of his career as a touring virtuoso.

Cramer was born a mere two months after Beethoven in Mannheim, and grew up in London in a milieu that spanned lessons with Abel to a career as a publisher and membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society and the board of the newly founded Royal Academy of Music. He was steeped in the music of Mozart, Haydn, Clementi and a range of Bachs, and was much admired by Beethoven. Accordingly the First and Third Concertos here (both from the 1790s) occupy a place somewhere between Mozart’s K503 and Beethoven’s First and Second. You could imagine all but a few of the gestures under Mozart’s fingers, even if Cramer doesn’t have the Salzburger’s ability to use harmony or thematic development to emotional ends. The Sixth is grander, as if Beethoven’s middle-period influence had rubbed off on him, even if this is no match in ambition for the Emperor. Songful central movements attest to Cramer’s noted way with legato, while finales display agility and an appealingly personal way with a harmonic twist.

Fair enough, none of these pieces pays dividends equal to Mozart or Beethoven. Take them on their own terms, however, and they are irresistibly cheerful, with enough in the way of invention and scintillating technical challenge to hold the attention throughout. And there can be no finer guide to this near-forgotten music than Howard Shelley who, yet again, sounds as if he’s been relishing these works for years. The LMP have clearly caught his infectious enthusiasm, too, and Hyperion’s sound is gloriously present and lifelike.