Jamie Walton’s latest anthology for Signum once again shows him to be a impressive performer in terms of technical acumen, stylish refinement and burnished tone. The Philharmonia, too, respond with beguiling poise (flutes, clarinets and horns in particular cover themselves in glory), and Ashkenazy’s is an avuncular presence on the podium.

That said, I can’t help thinking that Dvořák’s masterly Concerto cries out for a firmer hand on the structural tiller than it receives here. For all the undoubted incidental felicities, I do persist in finding the slow movement a tad too leisurely (it pays to heed to the composer’s specific marking of Adagio ma non troppo). Neither is the finale as convincingly integrated or as profoundly moving as it should be: those unutterably poignant pages which precede the blazing culmination slacken to such a perilous degree that the crucial tingles fail to materialise – not a criticism that can be levelled at a clutch of rival versions featuring Casals, Rostropovich (with Talich and Boult), Fournier (Kubelík, in 1948 and 1954), Navarra (Stupka), Starker (Dorati), Angelica May and Wispelwey (Iván Fischer). On the other hand, this team’s Silent Woods is an understated delight, while Walton’s consistently eloquent, tender and above all songful traversal of the Schumann Concerto winningly combines strength of personality, expressive reach and big-hearted sincerity. Signum’s April 2011 sessions took place in two venues (Walthamstow Assembly Hall and Croydon’s Fairfield Halls), but the resulting sound is evenly matched and expertly balanced.