Sophie Pacini (b1991) is a protégée of Martha Argerich and it shows – not only in her front-cover portrait but also in her performance of Schumann’s Piano Concerto. There’s a similar air of in-the-moment rhapsodising and no fear of giving the performance a boot up the backside if she catches her accompanists napping. Gerhard Oppitz, on the other hand, is approaching 60 and must have played the Schumann Concerto hundreds of times. Both, naturally, display admirable proficiency in the work. So why did I find my mind wandering in both performances?

Miss Pacini clearly has something to say in this music and the technique to do so. What is lacking, perhaps, is the ability to take the long view and tie up all the work’s episodes into a unified whole. Oppitz, on the other hand, has the work so much under his fingers that it’s as if nothing is a problem for him; the result is sleek without penetrating the surface. It’s a magnificent show, to be sure, but not much more than that. Turning for comparison to Leif Ove Andsnes, one hears a pianist fully in control not only of the work’s fearsome technical demands but clear about where it’s heading: whereas, for example, Oppitz’s passagework in the finale is no more than that, in Andsnes’s hands each run of quavers is inflected, not only to add interest to strings of equal notes but also to explicate the structure of the piece. He has far more characterful accompaniment, too, although perhaps it’s unfair to measure the two provincial German bands under discussion against Berlin’s finest under Mariss Jansons.

If you’re tempted to try out either of these discs, the couplings will be an important consideration. Sophie Pacini strays off Argerich territory for Mozart’s early concerto masterpiece, which seems more engaging than her Schumann. If the opening Allegro is a touch soft-grained, she relishes the playfulness of the final movement and distils a touching pathos not only in the breathtaking C minor Andantino but also in the menuet triste episode in the finale. Oppitz stays with Schumann for two rarities and a curio. If neither the Concert-Allegro with Introduction nor the Introduction and Allegro appassionato perhaps betrays the divine spark of genius that ignites the Concerto, they both contain killer tunes and colouristic touches that pooh-pooh lazy notions of Schumann’s supposed orchestral incompetence: I was impressed by Florian Uhlig’s recordings recently and this is a useful alternative. The remaining work is a piano transcription of the Konzertstück for four horns and may seem something of a disappointment to aficionados of the original version; nevertheless, it’s good to have this oddity – the only other version I know is a rather more diffuse reading by Lev Vinocour. Perhaps it’s their rarity value but Oppitz’s performances of these pieces are more compelling than his Concerto: so, frustratingly, both discs are more desirable for their couplings than for the headline work.