Like many, my first encounter with the Khachaturian Piano Concerto was by way of Moura Lympany’s 1945 Decca recording with the LSO and Anatole Fistoulari. It was Lympany who gave the UK premiere of the piece in 1940 – an invitation which, interestingly enough, Clifford Curzon declined before her. Too gaudy by half for his taste, I would imagine. But it was the work that in a sense launched the Armenian-Soviet composer on the wider world before, that is, TV’s Onedin Line catapulted him to international superstardom.

That extravagant Adagio – the grand pas de deux of Spartacus and Phrygia from his ballet Spartacus – became his greatest hit and was primarily the reason he subsequently filled the Albert Hall for a concert of his ‘lollipops’, arriving on stage, I seem to recall, in a follow spot, his dinner jacket weighed down with Soviet medals. It is, of course, a great tune which is far from diminished in the solo piano transcription with which Jean-Yves Thibaudet launches this Khachaturian hamper for the same label that initially championed the concerto – Decca.

The other transcriptions featured are the ubiquitous Sabre Dance from Gayaneh – whose foot-stomping propulsion does not spare the ivories in Thibaudet’s rendition – and the Masquerade Suite whose Waltz (a real earworm) and Galop are so redolent of Shostakovich’s Jazz Suites in their end-of-pier exuberance. Thibaudet is nothing if not a flamboyant showman (that’s a compliment) but equally his graceful reading of Khachaturian’s whimsical salon pieces Pictures of Childhood is full of charm and even a little mystique in ‘A Glimpse of the Ballet’ (the Adagio from Gayaneh) whose spare tone is strangely beautiful.

But on to the Piano Concerto, which brings on Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to lend lushness and muscle to the proceedings. None of its themes are especially memorable per se but notes are piled on for optimum virtuosity and Thibaudet’s mastery of the work’s hectoring grandiosity is happily countered by the exotic Armenian inflections to which he brings an almost French impressionistic finesse.

Bass clarinet furtively leads our way into the slow movement where, notoriously, the flexatone or ‘musical saw’ is deployed to lend a level of cheesiness to the tone which frankly is hard to take seriously. Not surprisingly it is often excluded from performances of the piece – but to do the piece without it is to pretend the work is other than what it is: a somewhat vulgar crowd-pleaser. Thibaudet, of course, takes the sub-Rachmaninovian pyrotechnics in his stride and his swagger in the jazzy finale is infectious.

It is a work for very occasional outings but its return to the Decca catalogue will be cause for muted celebration in some quarters.