I approached this record with a mix of caution and exhilaration. For 28-year-old Olli Mustonen is surely Decca's enfant terrible pianist in residence. Piquantly and provocatively he makes every bar of these concertos his own. Indeed, he wears his personality so generously on his sleeve that both composers (and particularly Chopin) are in danger of taking a back seat. For him a term such as leggierissimo is an excuse for a bouncing, ping-pong ball staccato, a beady-eyed aplomb that will make backs arch and hackles rise in many musical quarters. Personally, I started by delighting in such tireless caprice but ended exhausted, even disillusioned by such relentless 'character' playing. Those who maintain a lifelong affection for Chopin's early glitter and romance will find much of this intolerably mannered.
Mustonen's fingers and reflexes are as razor-sharp as any in the business and, once again, he charges the Grieg concerto with an instantly recognizable electricity and brilliance. His phrasing can be terse and choppy rather than natural or long-breathed in, say, Lipatti's regal and classic style, his gnomic preoccupation with detail self-conscious and detrimental to the music's line and impetus. Yet it is all piercingly original with a diamond-bright clarity faultlessly suited to today's Steinways. While hardly abandoning my own favourites in this concerto (they include Lipatti on a five-disc EMI set, Lupu on Decca and Zimerman on DG), I shall return to this performance for a special enlightenment, a ruffling of all possible complacency. More generally, such playing will polarize listeners, some being beguiled by such intriguing pianism, others feeling that there is perhaps something 'beyond all this fiddle' and so much elfin mischief-making. Blomstedt's partnership (no easy task) is alert and sensitive and the recordings are superb. The accompanying booklet includes Olli Mustonen's own idiosyncratic plea for idiosyncrasy and ''for those interpretative solutions that are in perfect harmony with the music they are to serve''.'