It’s clear that Finghin Collins delights in Mozart and the four concertos here are the fruits of his time as Associate Artist with the RTÉ National SO, which he directs from the keyboard. The works range widely in mood, from the relatively carefree K415 to the proto-Beethovenian K466, and Collins is alive to their different personalities and at pains to give each phrase apt contour and detail. The long lines of the slow movement of K415 are finely wrought in what is perhaps the most compelling performance in the set.

However, what is revealed when comparing Collins with the best is that neither he nor the orchestra can quite cut it in the most august company. Take K456, for instance: Richard Goode is just that degree more characterful, particularly in the finale. Or the opening movement of K482, where Alfred Brendel allies profound intelligence with a subtly shaded characterisation and has, in Charles Mackerras, the ideal sparring partner: in the same concerto’s slow movement the restraint of the SCO is very telling. Finghin Collins has plenty to say in this work but ends up sounding almost fussy alongside them. Or turn back the clock further, to Edwin Fischer in 1935, to hear the slow movement imbued with a profound air of tragedy, after which his sparkling finale leaves Collins sounding just a touch careful.

In the unnerving opening to K466 the RTÉ orchestra, with their clearly symphonic dimensions and legato phrasing, make less of the brooding unease than some – Andsnes and Pires among them. But that sense of menace isn’t restricted to smaller, more agile forces: Markevitch (for Haskil) is marvellously vivid, and so is the largely forgotten Antoine de Bavier (clarinettist turned conductor) for Michelangeli. Something remarkable was in the air on July 11, 1956, when the great Italian performed two concertos at the Ludwigsburg Festival. The sound – the piano in particular – needs some apology but the playing certainly does not (and the ear does adjust reasonably quickly), for here is the 36-year-old in his prime, making his arrival in K466 by turns assured, warm, classical and utterly mesmerising. That he drags the players almost by the scruffs of their necks in the fast-paced finale only adds to the sense of physical immediacy. Collins, by comparison, sounds somewhat too sane here. There’s much to admire in Michelangeli’s performance of K450, too, be it in his delicate interplay with the orchestra, the sense of an almost vocal line in the Andante or the naughty-but-nice introduction of an additional cadenza prior to the finale’s development. This is supremely classy Mozart-playing and, being previously unreleased on CD, a very welcome addition to the catalogue.