In most respects these are distinguished readings. Sonically speaking, the judicious balance between piano and orchestra conveys a palpable chamber-like aesthetic that brings important woodwind details to the fore, such as the interweaving clarinet and horn parts in the First Concerto’s Largo. This can also be attributed to Vasily Petrenko’s penchant for the kind of lean, transparent textures, rhythmic spring and regimented ensemble values one hears in Beethoven concerto cycles from Szell/Cleveland, Zinman/Zurich Tonhalle and Dausgaard/Swedish Chamber Orchestra. My only issues with Petrenko’s firmly delineated and profiled support concerns instances where the strings seem underpowered and lacking in requisite heft (particularly in the central movements’ slow and sustained passages), along with the conductor’s tendency to pull back at certain climaxes and to taper phrase endings, an annoying period-performance mannerism that seems to have stuck.

Boris Giltburg’s polished and cultivated pianism shines in the crystalline scales of the First Concerto’s Allegro and in how he shapes his solo in the development section (starting at 7'02") so that the phrases sweetly sing over the bar lines. If Giltburg isn’t so rabble-rousing and angular as Yefim Bronfman or Leon Fleisher in the Rondo finale, he compensates with witty turns of phrase, such as the buoyant broken octaves and the conversational exchanges between hands (bars 89 118, around 1'14"), and the roundness and definition of his staccatos in the A minor theme.

If anything, the B flat Second Concerto’s outer movements elicit more inspired and scampering soloist/ensemble interplay. I especially like Giltburg’s slightly studied yet imaginatively nuanced parsing of the first-movement cadenza’s fierce counterpoint, and his attention to the accompaniment’s inner voices in the Adagio. The stand-alone Rondo in B flat was Beethoven’s original ending for the Second Concerto, and why this delightful, unpredictable work is not a regular concert staple is a mystery. Giltburg and Petrenko revel in the work’s disarming humour and magical transitions, serving up its most captivating recording since the venerable Julius Katchen/Piero Gamba version (Decca, 5/59). Giltburg’s enthusiasm spills over into his informative booklet notes, where he gives plausible reasons for choosing the shorter of Beethoven’s two completed cadenzas for the C major Concerto’s first movement.