Iyad Sughayer pf BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Andrew Litton

BIS 

Following his album of Khachaturian’s works for solo piano, Jordanian-Palestinian Iyad Sughayer continues with two works for piano and orchestra, plus the Masquerade Suite in a solo arrangement by Alexander Dolukhanian.

Khachaturian’s gaudy, cinematic Piano Concerto naturally takes centre stage. While less supercharged here than in William Kapell’s legendary recording there is ample glitter in Sughayer’s performance, particularly when heard in BIS’s modern sound. The finale has both Sughayer and Andrew Litton letting their hair down and going for every outrageous gesture. The flexatone (a musical saw once described as a sort of ‘Swanee whistle’) wails its way through the central Andante.

If the Concerto-Rhapsody seems too closely related to the Concerto, the Masquerade Suite compensates in a performance given with all the necessary verve: the Mazurka should have even the least susceptible heads nodding and feet tapping.