Lang Lang has a knack for building interesting programmes, none more personal, perhaps, than his latest release. It encompasses a fascinating variety of traditional Chinese songs from several generations arranged by Chinese composers. Seven are for piano solo, while three others add a different traditional Chinese instrument to the mix. Each of these is an extended piece featuring energetic, dance-like interplay between the instruments. Not only do they marvellously showcase Fan Wei's pipa (Chinese lute), Zhang Jiali's guanzi (double-reed pipe) and Ji Wei's guzheng (Chinese zither), they also reveal Lang Lang as an inspiring and musicianly collaborator. He's not afraid to enliven the rhythms with emphatic accents and dynamic surges, yet he appropriately pulls back while his partner has the ball in court, so to speak.

Such direct, heartfelt music making also extends to flashier solos like Autumn Moon on a Calm Lake and Dialogue in Song, where the impulsive rubato and breaking of hands sound utterly natural (so different from his indulgent, unstructured DG Rachmaninov concertos). And the crystalline nuances he brings to simple, evocative fare like The Cowherd's Flute confirms my long-held notion that Lang Lang ought to explore Debussy. I suspect that the pianist doesn't care if the committee-composed Yellow River Concerto's tunes don't develop or its harmonies largely stay put, and that it sounds like watered-down Dvorák and Rachmaninov, because he gives a thrilling, colourful, fervently committed account of the solo part. Only the overly languid third movement falls flat, where the pianist's repeated notes push, pull, and ultimately drop off the proverbial necklace.

On Naxos, pianist Cheng-Zong Yin's steadier, symmetrical fingerwork pays superior expressive dividends, as does conductor Adrian Leaper's faster, more fluid basic tempo. Still, Yu Long elicits fine, enthusiastic work from the China Philharmonic, notwithstanding a slightly constricted ambience plus balances that spotlight the piano to a fault.