Is it wise for the controversial 20-year-old Yoav Levanon to try so hard to emulate Liszt – to the point of staging publicity photos that mimic familiar images of the composer? Isn’t he setting himself up for a fall? True, Levanon has an impressive technique (check out the repeated notes that launch the fifth variation in Totentanz). True, he has a generically Romantic approach to the music, a healthy willingness to supplement the score with personal touches when it comes to tempo, articulation, dynamics and voicing. But Liszt he’s not – and the self-promotion encourages expectations that are met only sporadically.

Simply put, Levanon is brilliant but uneven. His extreme flexibility can enthral; but it sometimes slides into self-indulgence (try the solo passage near the beginning of the First’s Quasi adagio), and it sometimes disappears as his pulse submits to the bullying of the bar lines. Likewise, his sense of colour can illuminate the music; but he often overlooks opportunities for timbral play (surely he could do more with the glissandos in the second variation of Totentanz). Sometimes he captures the music’s momentum (the opening of the Second’s Marziale un poco meno allegro rings out boldly); sometimes, especially in transitional passages, he simply treads water. No wonder the performances sputter. The orchestra is desultory, and coordination is iffy.

Levanon is more persuasive in the solo numbers appended to the digital version of this release – pieces inexplicably left off the CD, despite ample room. The Schumann-Liszt Frühlingsnacht, artfully shaped, is notable for its ardour and its sensitive handling of interweaving lines; the melancholy of Liszt’s Romance comes across eloquently. And his own over-the-top paraphrase of Wolf’s ‘Verschwiegene Liebe’ makes an effective closer.

For its exceptional promise and its splashes of first-rate playing, this release should be of interest to piano aficionados. General listeners, though, have better alternatives. To my ears, the combination of fire and discipline in Sviatoslav Richter’s account of the concertos (Philips, 5/62) is unmatched. But whatever your aesthetic preferences, there are recordings of this repertoire – from Alfred Brendel’s (Philips, 10/73) through Grigory Ginzburg’s (Vox Aeterna, 8/05) on to Krystian Zimerman’s (DG, 11/88) – that will give you more consistent pleasure than Levanon’s.