In the 1990s Seta Tanyel recorded a sizeable amount of Scharwenka for the now defunct Collins Classics, and it is gratifying to find her series re-surfacing on Hyperion. Hearing the Second and Third Piano Concertos again, I was struck by her elegant way of easing through every intricacy and arabesque with the instincts of a born musical aristocrat.

She can thunder with the best of them in, for example, the Third Concerto’s cadenza, but it is always ‘sweet thunder’ and you never hear an unmusical note or an ill-shaped phrase. Terms like dolce take on a special meaning in such sympathetic hands – never more so than in the Third Concerto’s winning Adagio, where Scharwenka so loves his main theme that he returns to it again and again, compelling the listener to delight in its romantic yearning.

In more frisky territory, Tanyel is light-fingered and resilient in the Polish dance of the Third’s first movement (at 6'10"). But if I miss something of Michael Ponti’s spine-tingling bravura in the Second’s display and ricocheting syncopation, and in much of the finale – where Martin Eastwick notes a ‘distinctly Eastern, perhaps…a slightly Yiddish colouring’ – Tanyel’s playing is more musical, less angular and intent on cutting a dash.

This is No 33 in Hyperion’s ‘Romantic Piano Concerto’ collection, an admirable addition to an admirable series. The recordings retain their original excellence and Tadeusz Strugala and the German orchestra back their stylish soloist to the hilt.