Yuja Wang is clearly the star billing on this new release in DG’s recently launched Verbier Festival Gold digital-only series. The performances here date from 2009 and have previously seen the light of day as a DVD (1/11), which scored highly in Jeremy Nicholas’s Gramophone Collection on the concerto in July 2018.

Wang brings to the concerto her trademark mix of fieriness and impeccable fingerwork, and the opening movement positively skyrockets into life. Kurt Masur shows his considerable experience as a concerto accompanist, but on occasion even he can’t quite get the VFO players to react fast enough to her mercurial approach (for instance track 1 from 1'15", track 3, 4'06"). But there’s plenty to impress here, from the billowing ease of Wang’s double octaves and the charm she brings to the more lyrical moments to her sensitivity in accompanying passages. In the linking passage between the first two movements the Verbier players relish the contrast between the brass fanfares and pizzicato strings, while the start of the Andante proper is more vibrato-heavy than the Paris CO’s restrained strings on Lars Vogt’s recent reading. Indeed, the players as a whole are a degree less characterful and more recessed in the balance than Vogt’s, who are true chamber-musical equals.

The finale goes at a real lick and in the piano’s triumphant theme (track 3, 0'50") Wang is pristine, though less inclined to relax into playfulness than either Vogt or Shelley. Though this is never less than impressive, there is, at times, a slightly hard-edged quality to its glitter. But the closing minutes, with Masur reducing the sound to a whisper before the final exuberant outpouring, prompts the audience (very quiet up to this point) into vociferous applause.

The D major Sextet, written when Mendelssohn was 15, is treated to a classy line-up. If it lacks the personality of Mendelssohn’s Octet from a year later, it still has plenty to engage and the unusual line-up (piano plus a single violin, cello, double bass and a pair of violas) gives a mellow colouring to what is in effect a piano concerto in miniature. Wang fully understands that and is a very persuasive advocate, from the infectious vigour of the first movement to the aria-like writing of the Adagio in a glistening F sharp major. But while the emotional clouds are few in the initial two movements, Mendelssohn springs a surprise in the third – a minuet in D minor, which has a drive more associated with a scherzo, with relief only coming in the gracious F major Trio. In the finale the composer has another surprise up his sleeve, its upbeat mood dramatically interrupted by the reprise of the dark minuet theme just before the close, the piano then leading a desperate charge to turn things back to the major. Wang is absolutely in her element here, and the string players make the most of their subordinate roles. Certainly worth hearing for the chamber piece.