Delius aficionados will need no reminding from me that this is not the first recording of his Piano Concerto in its original guise, that honour having gone to Piers Lane and the Ulster Orchestra under David Lloyd-Jones (Hyperion, 2/06). In fact, the work began life in 1897 as a Fantasy for piano and orchestra, its tripartite structure owing much to the example of Liszt. Although it was never played in the concert hall, we do know of a private play-through by the composer and Ferruccio Busoni on two pianos that took place early in 1898. Delius must have had a fondness for the piece, for he extensively recast it as a Piano Concerto in C minor. A projected Berlin performance by Busoni in 1902 fell through, so it was not until October 1904 that the work finally received its premiere, in Elberfeld, Germany, with Julius Buths as soloist and Hans Haym on the podium. For the final version from 1907, Delius devised an entirely new last movement, so it’s fascinating to discover at the start of the cadenza (precisely eight minutes in) a hauntingly beautiful idea he subsequently rescued for his 1916 Violin Concerto. Howard Shelley and Sir Andrew Davis bring rather more in the way of epic ambition and romantic ardour to this likeable music than do their Hyperion rivals, though at times greater rhythmic snap would not have gone amiss, especially at the start of the finale, which launches in a ear-pricking 5/4.

As for the remainder, Davis makes a lovely job of the early Idylle de printemps. However, I’m less convinced by the performances of Brigg Fair and Paris, both of which Sir Andrew (at the helm of the BBC SO) set down with such conspicuous understanding, luminosity and poise for Teldec around two decades ago. Granted, in the former there are a handful of felicitous touches to savour, above all the heartwarming, truly cantabile violin tone at one bar after fig 15 (try from 0'11" on tr 2) but on the whole it’s a less coherent view than before, that blazing maestoso paragraph at its apex having nothing like the cumulative force or textural clarity of its notable predecessor.

Nor are concentration levels all they might be in this new Paris, a briskly efficient display which clocks in at an eyebrow-raising 18'43" – that’s nearly four minutes swifter than Davis’s previous reading, where Delius’s dusky opening pages distil a slumbering power and awesome mystery not replicated in Glasgow. Judged by Chandos’s own customarily high standards, the sound, too, falls a fraction short in terms of amplitude, focus and depth – no real match for Tony Faulkner’s sumptuously natural, demonstration-worthy engineering on that earlier release (it was last reissued as part of Warner Classics’ super-budget Apex series). I should add that on both my advance CDR review copy and finished product there’s a curious judder at 2'55" on tr 10 (or three before 15 in the score). Overall, then, something of a mixed bag.