On the surface this Chandos release is to be welcomed for, if you had never encountered Scharwenka’s concertos before, you might be impressed by the string of memorable ideas, the resourceful orchestration, the vigorous athleticism of Alexander Markovich and Neeme Järvi’s alert and stylish support. But all four performances fall short of this label’s usual exemplary high standards of performance and recording, and, in the two best concertos (Nos 1 and 4), are no competition for, in the former, Earl Wild with Erich Leinsdorf (1969) or Marc-André Hamelin with Michael Stern and, in the latter, Stephen Hough with Lawrence Foster in his Gramophone Award-winning recording.

The problem with the newcomer is twofold: Chandos’s venue, the Estonia Concert Hall, Tallinn, has a touch of the empty aircraft hangar about it and sounds as if the microphones have been placed in the rear stalls; and Markovich, for all his technical ability and energetic industry, is a far less rhythmically incisive and refined player than Wild, Hamelin or Hough. For instance, compare the first pages of No 1, in which the soloist wrests attention from the forceful orchestral tutti by entering with equal force and più animato: Wild grabs the initiative in thrilling fashion; Markovich hesitates and immediately reduces the tension. In the sparkling Scherzo, the skittering left-hand run that introduces the second subject is just one example of passagework that is not clearly articulated. In the third movement, there is a misreading at 4'31", and the single C sharp that leads into the exultant final statement of the main theme has a crude augmented dominant chord added to it. The soloist’s final blaze of octaves in the coda is indistinguishable beneath the boisterous orchestra. Though Laurence Jeanningros is cautious and underpowered by comparison, she is at least precise and rhythmically secure, as well as being better recorded.

Markovich captures admirably the lyrical repose of the Second Concerto’s Chopinesque Adagio but is again bettered in the perky krakowiak-like finale by the crisper leggiero touch of Seta Tanyel, to say nothing of Raymond Lewenthal, who recorded only the finale, though in poorer sound. Tanyel is also to be preferred in Concerto No 3. Markovich redeems himself somewhat in the expansive (19'46") first movement of No 4 with some sensitive phrasing and touch. In the extraordinary tarantella finale, though, where Hough has you on the edge of your seat with dazzling derring-do, Markovich is hard-hitting and poorly organised, reducing the music to a noisy rant.