It’s interesting that for Pierre Boulez, Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto is ‘the Cinderella of the family’, and doubly interesting given the recorded evidence, where Boulez and Hélène Grimaud turn prince and princess for the most memorable outing the work has had in years. Grimaud relishes Bartók’s solo writing (try the luscious de-synchronising chords from 3’28” into the first movement). Then there’s the way she can suddenly reduce the volume and body of her tone – at 4’13” into the second movement, for example, just before the high violins return (playing with the greatest purity). The woodwind birdsong at the centre of the Adagio sings out to a keen staccato; the timps and bass drum in the finale are wonderfully vivid.

How different is the Second Concerto, a high-energy production from Berlin. In the first movement the winds yak away while Leif Ove Andsnes approximates an angelic typist tabulating at speed, halfway between Anda’s playfulness and Pollini’s iron-fisted aggression. The Adagio sections of the second movement are held dead still, with roaring timpani rolls at the centre, while Andsnes’s account of the scurrying presto passage (5’01”) is even-fingered and dextrous, the recorded balance allowing for plenty of detail in both the foreground and background. But it’s the finale that shows Andsnes and Boulez exhibiting the most power and prowess. Try from 3’27” where Boulez cues gathering fanfares and Andsnes wrestles with the big drums: a stunning onslaught.

Krystian Zimerman’s account of the First Concerto is a refined tour de force, immaculate, controlled, sometimes quite free; Boulez’s conducting is at times just a little stiff-jointed. The sullen waltz at the centre of the second movement builds to a sonorous climax and the finale is feather-light, though I sense that Zimerman would have preferred a more playful sparring partner. And the recorded balance troubles me: the piano is far too close, the string line at 7’24” is all but swamped by the soloist.

Summing up, Grimaud’s Third is a winner; the Second with Andsnes has a fabulous finale, and Zimerman’s First is brilliant in parts, if not quite a meeting of minds. As to rivals, Peter Donohoe and Simon Rattle give us a cracking First; András Schiff’s set with Iván Fischer offers a rather more lyrical slant than the brawny Zoltán Kocsis (also with Fischer), whom I prefer; Géza Anda with Ferenc Fricsay evidently loves every moment; and in the first two concertos Pollini and Abbado are bold as brass and just a little brittle. My first choices: Kocsis and Anda.