This disc provides a generous coupling of two of the great nineteenth-century concertos in live performances from 1992 and 1993. The soloist, Ivan Moravec, a pianist of the same generation as Alfred Brendel, has a career that has taken him across Europe and the United States, though he is perhaps less known to British audiences.

His performances here are authoritative, intelligent and serious in intent. In the Schumann concerto tempi are well-judged and he finds the appropriate lyricism and intimacy where necessary; for my taste, however, the serious approach imposes a profundity on the work (particularly the first two movements) that shouldn't necessarily exist, since this is perhaps not the most earth-shattering of Romantic concertos. Also missing is a real sense of spontaneity: in many places, Moravec makes rather an issue of rubato instead of leaving it to arise naturally. However, the Finale dances nicely and has plenty of life-but certainly too much by the time the coda is reached, where the tempo begins to charge away in a headlong rush to the finish.

The Brahms concerto contains a strong sense of intelligent understanding, and in this work an exploration of the music's intellectual depths is entirely justified. But here, too, I felt that a dimension was missing: Moravec doesn't really appear to enjoy or explore the human drama in this life-or-death struggle. On several occasions, I craved a little more natural flexibility; even the grim first movement could have a certain lilt during its more lyrical moments. In the finale (which is surely one of Brahms' Hungarian-style dances), the spark of gypsy spirit somehow fails to ignite.

This is an interesting disc which offers unusual alternative interpretations of two standard works. These are not definitive performances (I think of Dinu Lipatti's effortlessly natural Schumann recording), but nevertheless Moravec is a pianist worth listening to, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, under Eduardo Mata, provides a sensitive and sympathetic accompaniment.

Paul Janes