Weber and Brautigam are a very fine match and it seems remarkable that this is the first period-instrument recording of the complete works for piano and orchestra. The sonorities and dramatic impetus that make Weber’s music so identifiable sound supremely fresh, a tribute to the artistry of the Kölner Akademie under Willens and the superb fortepiano by master-maker Paul McNulty after a Graf of 1819 (so contemporary with the date of the pieces).

The First Concerto, which is often written off as overly derivative, comes stirringly to life, Brautigam at ease with the brilliant fingeriness of much of the writing, which he dispatches with real joie de vivre. In the finale, for instance, whose main theme is largely built from simple scalic figures and fanfares, the colours of McNulty’s instrument add a vital dimension, and there are some eloquent contributions from clarinet, oboe and flute in the episodes. Equally potent is the brief inner Adagio, which Brautigam and Willens imbue with a real majesty.

Weber composed his Second Concerto after he’d encountered Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, and the two works share more than just a key. This is a vibrant affair, the opening fanfares suitably striking, with the timpani punchily underpinning the dotted rhythm, while the rushing string semiquavers cut through the texture in a thrilling manner. When the piano enters, the hands initially wide apart, the colours of the different ranges within the instrument are very apparent, and Brautigam is alive to the contrast between the brilliance and gentler, more caressing moments. The piano is beautifully captured within the recorded mix as well. And moments that can seem like mere passagework (for example from 3'42") are so full of detail that they compel attention. The sheer imagination of the scoring at the start of the slow movement, featuring eerily muted violins before the viola introduces the piano’s freewheeling fantasy, is also revelatory and the moment where the clarinets break through the texture (1'43") is magical indeed. In a performance this nuanced you realise just how revolutionary Weber’s musical thinking was. The tension is released in the boisterous finale, superbly realised by Brautigam at his most dexterous aided and abetted by colourful wind. The solo cello accompanied by piano (from 3'25") offers a rare moment of poignancy and the silence that follows is properly dramatic, before we’re back to high jinks to round off the concerto in irrepressible fashion.

Perhaps the best is left to last – it took Weber several years to write the Konzertstück, completing it in 1821, and it showed a new direction of travel for the concerto genre. This new account brings vividly to life that innovation, from the opening wind-rich chords, wonderfully hued here, to the piano-writing, which demands both fantasy and brilliance. The slow sections – the Larghetto affettuoso and the brief Adagio – have a pathos worthy of Mozart, contrasting with the darkly driving Allegro passionato and the darkness-to-light finale, which is prefaced by a march in which the combination of clarinet, horn and timpani is as characterful as could be. Though there are classic accounts of the Konzertstück by the likes of Claudio Arrau, Robert Casadesus and Lili Kraus, this is very much its equal in pianism and incomparable in terms of orchestral timbres. A triumph.