This is the second disc of this unlikely coupling to come my way in the past two years. Martin Helmchen with Marc Albrecht on Pentatone turned in a noteworthy account of the Schumann and a revitalising one of the Dvořák in its original version, as here on Naïve (as opposed to the more widely played revision of the solo part by Vilém Kurz). This new release is very much its equal. Helmchen pushes forward just that bit more in the Schumann and offers a more fiery first-movement cadenza; the talented Swiss Piemontesi, though, benefits from a wonderfully realistic piano sound – too forwardly placed, some may think – which captures his creamy tone production and tapered phrase-endings to good effect. It’s a live concert performance, apparently, though with no audible hint of an audience.

Piemontesi’s Dvořák is a Maida Vale studio recording but adroitly given a similar sound picture to the Schumann. While one can argue whether we need any more recordings of the Schumann (well over 100 available at the last count), there are only about 13 of the Dvořák, not all of them in such feisty, committed performances as this new one and certainly not in such good sound, notwithstanding Franti≈ek Maxián and Vaclav Talich in 1951 using the Kurz revision. Here I think Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBC SO have the edge on their Pentatone rivals. Listening to Piemontesi and returning again to the great Ivan Moravec’s account (Kurz’s version under Bělohlávek again) makes you wonder if it isn’t time the Dvořák gained a place in the regular concerto repertoire.