What an enticing programme, with Ashkenazy Sr joined by his son Vovka for an all-French repast. One of the most intriguing pieces here is the first recording of Jeux in Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s recent transcription for two pianos, especially heard alongside the Frenchman’s awe-inspiring version for one keyboard in Vol 5 of his Debussy cycle (Chandos, 11/09). Though this two-piano arrangement is every bit as full of imagination and subtlety as the solo one, the playing is cooler than Bavouzet’s, and ultimately less evocative. Ashkenazy Sr has never been the most sensual of players and that’s the real caveat here because, for all the quickfire brilliance on show, the more intimate moments go for little, whether in Ravel’s unhinged evocation of the waltz or the scarcely veiled come-hither sultriness of the second piece of Rapsodie espagnole. In both, the playing tends to dryness (perhaps exacerbated by the recording), and they sound more comfortable in the faster-moving music.

In Debussy’s En blanc et noir, while they are less incendiary than Argerich and Freire (but certainly show more unanimity than Britten and Richter, who unwittingly remind us how challenging this music is), I was surprised that such a fine Shostakovich interpreter as Ashkenazy père didn’t draw more menace from the Lent-sombre, and while the opening movement is technically impressive, the physicality of the music is emphasised at the expense of tonal coloration.

Perhaps the highlight is “Entre cloches” from Ravel’s Sites auriculaires, a tintinnabulation that would satisfy even Rachmaninov, the two pianists revelling in Ravel’s skilful layering of texture upon texture. But overall, it’s a peculiarly unseductive experience.