These three concertos were composed in the early 1830s, while Bennett was still a teenager and a student at the RAM. Malcolm Binns recorded them for Lyrita some three decades ago – scintillating performances that captured the music’s youthful élan. Now we have Howard Shelley conducting from the piano in the 74th instalment of Hyperion’s seemingly inexhaustible survey of Romantic concertos. And fine as Binns’s accounts are, Shelley’s are finer still.

Musically, these works display a variety of influences: Mozart, Mendelssohn and the London Piano School (Clementi, Cramer and Bennett’s teacher Cipriani Potter). The solo writing is fluent but can veer towards flash and fluff. Binns – sensibly, I think – keeps the music taut and streamlined, executing the glittering passages with classical poise and a minimum of fuss. Shelley is far more daring, savouring and often sculpting the virtuoso flights of fancy – and, in general, elicits a wealth of expressive detail from material that might appear unremarkable on its surface.

He finds poetry in the slow movement of the First Concerto, for instance, particularly in the central section, with its tenderly intimate, chamber music-like interplay at 3'10". In some passages, like the opening volley of the Second Concerto’s playful finale, Shelley’s playing is so articulate and finely characterised that it has a narrative quality. The Third Concerto was admired by both Mendelssohn and Schumann. I’ll admit it’s difficult not to be enticed by the mysteriously atmospheric Romanza, with its delicate pizzicato accompaniment and folksy melodic accent. But this concerto is also the most frankly flamboyant of the three, and what impresses me most in Shelley’s interpretation is how he makes the ornamental sound meaningfully expressive.

Truth be told, I approached this release with muted enthusiasm, believing the music to be of sturdy but slender charm. I’m delighted to stand corrected. This generously packed, beautifully recorded disc is – like so many in Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series – simply revelatory.