The very opening of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto is a good indicator of how the pianist views the piece and Dong Hyek Lim’s way with these chords (arpeggiated here) does indeed set the scene for a luxuriant performance, answered in kind by Vedernikov’s BBC SO strings. The piano is very forwardly placed so that every accompanying figure is clearly audible. While he can be poetic in solo passages, in duetting with the orchestra (such as the soaring first-movement melody, from 7'04") he is somewhat overbearing – though I’m tempted to lay the blame with the recording itself here. The more rapt moments can’t compare with Hough, either, who gets a wonderful balance of momentum and beauty in this movement.

That sense continues into the second movement (where the duetting with the flute is oddly prosaic); how much more fluidly does the Dallas SO under Litton build those opening moments, Hough then responding in kind. Or Pappano, with the BPO for Andsnes, who also has the benefit of some peerless flute-playing. Lim is too tempted to kill the music with kindness. With the shift to più animato (4'10") things come to life somewhat but Hough invariably has a more interesting conversation with his orchestra, whereas Lim leads from the front, the orchestra following dutifully behind.

The finale sets off at a decent tempo, but when Lim enters his bass notes are curiously over-prominent and overall there’s a muscularity that is tonally unappealing. The more lyrical passages are, it seems, an invitation to linger; and while some pianists could make this work, he doesn’t quite have the requisite panache to bring them off.

Lim is a former protégé of Martha Argerich and she joins him for the Symphonic Dances, long a party piece of hers. Among her many recordings, I’d rate the ones with the two Nelsons – Goerner and Freire – the finest. In the account with Alexandre Rabinovitch they sometimes sound as if they’re trying to outplay one another, while Nicolas Economou can get a bit heavy-handed in the bass register.

So where does this new one fit into the scheme of things? It scores highly on physical brilliance and Lim follows Argerich’s lead in the improvisatory way they set the scene out of which the first movement’s dreamy melody emerges (3'35"), on which they proceed to lavish much affection. And the lead back to the original tempo (7'30") is excitingly done, though the glorious high-lying writing (from 10'08") is more poetically and subtly realised in her readings with Freire and Goerner than here. They convey the underlying waltz rhythm of the central movement well but I wanted more songfulness in the melodies. And while the finale is high on energy, the sound itself tends towards the aggressive.