A one-time concert staple, Anton Rubinstein’s Fourth Piano Concerto virtually disappeared from the repertoire in the West by the mid-20th century. While the music isn’t likely to regain immense popularity, its fortunes have nevertheless been revived through a number of modern-day recordings. The latest contender was recorded live in New York, with the pianist Anna Shelest and Neeme Järvi leading Leon Botstein’s The Orchestra Now. The conductor launches into the first-movement introduction at a faster than usual clip, while Shelest sails through her introductory cadenza with bracing confidence and not a single splinter or vagary in those massive chords. Her forward-moving phrasing and flexibility are exactly what this burly music demands, even though her passages with descending double notes lack Marc-André Hamelin’s supple evenness. The pianist’s tone notably opens up in the cadenza, where even a home listener gets a sense of how her melodic projection extends out towards the venue’s proverbial peanut gallery.

If anything, the tumultuous finale showcases Shelest’s power and agility operating at more inspired capacity, tossing out runs, leaps and octave surges to effortless effect. Järvi and his musicians clearly enjoy the music’s rapid-fire interplay between soloist and ensemble. Yet despite strong orchestral support and lovingly phrased woodwind-playing, the central Andante falls slightly flat. Here is where the ability to shape long cantabile lines and achieve a genuine singing legato is crucial, and Shelest frankly does not sustain the lyrical sections with the transparency, textural variety and colour that one hears from the veteran Shura Cherkassky.

A colleague characterised the Caprice russe as ‘Rubinstein wanting to be Saint-Saëns’. And why not? After all, the composers were friends and colleagues, and what’s wrong with interweaving three memorable themes into a fantasy full of pianistic glitter, even if much of it rambles with padding? Much as I appreciate the full-bodied eloquence of Joseph Banowetz’s Marco Polo recording, Shelest proves more nuanced and incisive all round. Listen to the bravura sweep of her long cadenza leading into her heel-kicking treatment of the Scherzando, and the orchestra’s corresponding élan; a zestier option compared to the heavier-gaited Centaur version with pianist Grigorios Zamparas. If you want a darker, more serious Caprice russe, stick with Banowetz, but the more extroverted Shelest/Järvi seems more in keeping with the work’s blatant flashiness. However, Hamelin’s Rubinstein Fourth remains the current sonic and interpretative point of reference, seconded by the steely brilliance of the Raekallio/Grin release from Ondine.