It’s no surprise that the Zurich-born cellist Christian Poltéra is a chamber music devotee. Even his big soloistic statements are strikingly ego-free, and these recordings of Czech concertos make the point. Poltéra clearly doesn’t have much time for self-indulgence or pompousness. In fact, he doesn’t have much time here full stop; these performances go by at a surprising lick. We’re left in no doubt of his exuberance and his refreshingly straightforward approach.

It pays off, to an extent, in Dvořák’s B minor Concerto, where Poltéra always keeps the finishing line in view. He gives us seamless, breathless phrases, a clear sense of over-arching structure and plenty of vigour, punching out his first entry with a resounding ‘smack’. What he doesn’t give us is heart-on-sleeve abandon. And that’s fine, for the most part; there is nothing to be gained in this piece from navel-gazing. Still, there are points – the wind-down to the second movement; the first entrance of the folksong ‘Lass mich allein’ in the third – when one can’t help longing for the kind of poeticism, the sheer emotional depth, that make Steven Isserlis’s and Alisa Weilerstein’s recordings such a joy.

That kind of poeticism doesn’t fit the disc’s second offering. Martinů’s First Cello Concerto was originally conceived as a chamber concerto, and even after the composer orchestrated it, it retained a sense of Baroque poise. It needs, above all, a clean, elegant approach, and that’s what Poltéra provides. He makes this fiendishly difficult piece sound easy, smoothly negotiating the labyrinthine harmonies, injecting a sense of lift. He eschews all sentimentality. But he also recognises that, for all its understatement, this is highly focused, highly charged music. The first movement explodes like a pack of fireworks; the second stands out for its lyrical intensity. It makes for a thrilling performance, not enough to outshine Raphael Wallfisch’s outstanding reading, but enough to stand alongside it.