Pedestrian collaboration hampers Jian Wang in most of the First Concerto. Muhai Tang binds the music to the bar-line; and the soloist, who ought to be both foil and complement to the conductor, often gets tugged back to a restricted mode of execution. He does remarkably well in the Adagio trying to express what he feels despite Tang’s stilted direction. But Wang has the last word in the finale, breaking away to offer a virtuoso Allegro molto.

Engagement feels closer in the first movement of the Second Concerto. Often Tang yields more willingly to the flow of lines, yet he’s uncomfortable with a soulful view of the Adagio second movement and his inflexible stance is at odds with Wang’s flexible mobility. The heavy tread of the finale suggests discomfiture too; and towards the end Wang adds roulades to eight bars of openly unaccompanied wind writing, tainting the Urtext with an extract probably drawn from the discredited Gevaert reconstruction.

Harriet Krijgh follows suit: a pity, because she is a musician of engrossing responses who also bonds with a conductor of similar sensibility. Claudius Traunfellner doesn’t baulk at interpretative challenges, is receptive to contrasts in tone, instrumental balance and rhythm, and never stiffens momentum. He supports or asserts as required, though always allows Krijgh the freedom to distinguish and expand dimensions in the music that could otherwise be glossed over. She seizes the opportunities created, examples of which abound in both concertos, particularly in the slow movements.

Eloquence’s DG recording from the Lisbon Gulbenkian Auditorium is in good sound, notwithstanding a varying cello/orchestra balance. Capriccio’s venue is Raiding’s Liszt Concert Hall but the bloom and beauty of its acoustic is only partially captured; and Krijgh seems separately miked. For an equally fine alternative in a finer production, consider Steven Isserlis and Roger Norrington, who in the Second Concerto also offer Haydn uncorrupted by inauthentic emendation. Hear the difference, and consider too another option for the First Concerto – from Mstislav Rostropovich and Benjamin Britten, still walking tall after 49 years.