Knowing and admiring Pascal Roge's playing of Poulenc's music for solo piano and some of his chamber works, I thought that he had already recorded the composer's Piano Concerto. But no, or at least if he has, the performance is not in the current catalogue. However, this version, recorded in London last year, has been worth waiting for. It is as good as one might expect from the artists taking part, with the Concerto giving us the right blend of melodic and textural richness, wit and warmth in the hands of performers who understand the music well enough to bring out all its felicitous detail without exaggeration. On balance, the mood of its expansive first movement is more tender than usual here, with its incisive wit and spiky Stravinskian instrumentation being correspondingly less in evidence, for example at around the three-minute mark. But the music can take this approach, and the climaxes are not underplayed, while the ecstatically chorale-like music towards the end of the movement is done to perfection. In the gentle Andante con moto, Roge and Dutoit are in their element, but here again the powerful passages also make their impact, while the romp of a finale has the right joie de vivre.
One wonders why these three works have not been presented together on a single disc more often. If you want them together, don't hesitate. The Two Piano Concerto comes over with great vivacity, with Deferne and Roge (playing second piano) skilfully unanimous and crisply recorded. The performance does not displace the stylish Duchable and Collard but joins their distinguished company. The Organ Concerto, recorded in St Alban's Cathedral, is also successful; Peter Hurford's mastery in Bach serves him well in its more darkly baroque aspects, but he is equally idiomatic in the uninhibitedly bouncy passages.'