'Pass over Sombart’ was Jed Distler’s verdict on the French pianist’s Beethoven concertos in December 2020. In the company of pianists such as Jayson Gillham, Gottlieb Wallisch and Inon Barnatan, there was insufficient insight or finesse to distinguish her recordings – ‘nothing elegant or sublime’, opined JD. Sad to say, there is little in her Mozart to cause one to revise that opinion. A feeling of generalised playing in the fast movements flattens out their drama, while slow movements are rendered stillborn by mistaking lethargic tempos (and unfocused rubato) for sensitivity.

Her D minor (K466) is a case in point. The opening movement is fine without keeping the listener on the edge of the seat the way, say, an Argerich, Andsnes or Anderszewski does. The Romanze sets off at a careful tread that becomes a plod as it unwinds, without the central minor-key outburst injecting any sort of spring into the step. Compare timings: Sombart takes 10'47" over this movement, compared with Andsnes’s 9'10" and Pires’s 8'25", both in recordings that convey far more of the mingled pathos and vehemence of this exquisite movement than Sombart manages. The finale, too, is marked by a certain plainspokenness allied with some indistinct fingerwork.

Sombart is spotlit in the recording such that accompanimental figures or off-hand commentaries dominate the conversation. The result is a distorted view of the music, and the opportunity to hear cadenzas by Luca Belloni rather than more familiar options in both K466 and 467 is hardly sufficient attraction. K467 itself opens smartly enough but is let down by uneven semiquavers and a lumpy trill at the soloist’s entry. The famous slow movement (8'13"; Pires takes 6'10") sags under the weight of its own self-regard. Ditto in the A major (K488), where the poignant F sharp minor Andante is rendered as a ponderous adagio and the outer movements are stripped of their joyfulness, and a K595 that is pulled around too much to do it any good. A word for the Royal Philharmonic, who barely put a foot wrong throughout.