The Croatian pianist Dejan Lazić grew up in Salzburg and studied at the city’s Mozarteum. One of his earliest recordings was of Mozart sonatas and solo piano works, and it’s hard to believe that that Channel Classics album is now almost quarter of a century old. More recently he’s offered us the piano quartets with a trio of colleagues (Onyx, 11/20), and now alights upon the concertos with a coupling of works that have special meaning for him: K488 in A, the first of the concertos he learnt as a child, and K449 in E flat, the first he recorded (in a chamber version, paired, remarkably, with the Clarinet Quintet with himself as soloist), as long ago as 1991 for the Jugoton label. He was 14.

Now in his mid-40s, Lazić gives performances of these two works that exude affection and individuality. He never once approaches a string of semiquavers, say, without inflecting it, stretching it out a little, pausing at the peak as if cresting a hill. There are piquant touches of ornamentation, too, as melodic material is reprised, although he sensibly holds off decorating the singing line of K488’s slow movement until the forlorn F sharp minor melody returns. Lazić’s liberties with tempo are always in the service of this magical music and land just on the right side of feeling mannered. Additionally, he provides his own cadenzas in both opening movements, taking the style slightly beyond an 18th-century aesthetic but not egregiously so.

Jan Willem de Vriend, a longstanding collaborator with Lazić, sets the scene with full-throated orchestral introductions from the Bergen Philharmonic. Woodwind are especially characterful – essential in this repertoire – and a rich, rotund bass and louring horns contribute to a sound world (in K449 especially) that’s more heavyweight symphonic than we might be used to. In between the two concertos comes Lazić’s arrangement of the finale of the B flat Sonata, K333. Déjà vu? Yes, it’s an orchestration of his own chamber arrangement, which he recorded on that Onyx album of the piano quartets. All the same, it’s an additional personal touch in a truly personal project, performed with maximum personality. It’s a refreshing change from a dispiriting recent string of faceless Mozart concerto recordings, which is another reason to be thankful to this ever-questing pianist.