Why review an album of Beatles songs in Gramophone? This magazine has some history with the Sixties band, having reviewed its early records when recordings were scarcer and our remit was broader. And many artists from every side of the musical divide(s) have offered their gloss since then – but perhaps few of them with the innate artistry and technique of Miloš Karadaglic. He offers a selection of 15 Beatles numbers, mostly specially arranged by Sergio Assad, with an array of starry guests. His playing is, naturally, of the highest order but the fact that he treats each song as a self-contained miniature means that sometimes one finds that the point is lost.

Of course, some of these songs have become ‘standards’ to take a place alongside ‘My way’ or ‘Summertime’. These are the ones that work best: an individual sound world can be created that makes each song individual to the performer. The title-track, ‘Blackbird’, is one such; so too is Takemitsu’s take on ‘Yesterday’, which weaves something unique and imaginative out of McCartney’s ballad, extending its harmonies without falling into the trap of freighting it with more than it can bear. Where the approach is less successful is where the song relies on the sound created half a century ago at Abbey Road’s Studio 2 (appropriately the venue for this album also): The Beatles in tandem with the extraordinary ear and arranging skills of George Martin created self-sufficient worlds for songs such as ‘While my guitar gently weeps’ or ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’ that render an alternative approach somewhat redundant.

Miloš lets his hair down in a song such as ‘Come together’, one of many underpinned by the string bass of Chris Hill. But whereas the original (1969) is a raw slice of Lennon’s blues, it seems a little too well behaved in the hands of the Montenegrin guitarist. The same obtains in ‘While my guitar’, where his classical instrument simply can’t capture the anguished wail of Eric Clapton’s solos (although it throws up the intriguing thought of what Miloš would sound like with a Stratocaster strapped over his shoulder rather than a ‘Spanish’ instrument).

Guests include the ever-soulful Gregory Porter in ‘Let it be’, a breathy Tori Amos (who breathes in all the wrong places) in a surprisingly still-born ‘She’s leaving home’ and the cellist Steven Isserlis, raising the class in ‘Michelle’. Anoushka Shankar brings a suitably lysergic atmosphere to ‘Lucy in the sky’, applying a drop of acid to Miloš’s goody-two-shoes perfection.

It’s worthwhile to be reminded – in these songs which are all too easy to take for granted – of the questing harmonic and structural outlook of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, which went far beyond anything rock‘n’roll had offered hitherto (and indeed beyond much of what followed). Most of these arrangements are largely faithful to the originals, although ‘All my loving’ gets first the ballad treatment (it once appeared on an album called ‘The Beatles Ballads’) and then the Recuerdos treatment – and it works. ‘Eleanor Rigby’ (with string ensemble) misses the stark terseness of Martin’s 1966 octet version. But songs such as ‘Something’ or (especially) ‘The fool on the hill’ work exceptionally well.

Not an unqualified success, then, but a reminder of The Beatles’ ingenuity and the timelessness of many of these songs. And a good reason to go back and rediscover the originals with Miloš’s personal take fresh in the ears.