The whip-crack that begins Ravel’s G major Concerto causes pianist Claire-Marie Le Guay and her conductor Louis Langrée to run with the first movement, leaving little time to linger where others might, yet never leaving the impression of impatience. While Le Guay clearly enjoys her own rather astonishing virtuosity, she realises that the piano is but one component in Ravel’s dazzling orchestral fabric. She’s not a colourist like Michelangeli (his ‘musical saw’ trills remain unique), yet her slow movement sings forth with elegant simplicity and directness. Le Guay and Langrée unleash the Presto at a breakneck clip but wisely slow down so that the orchestra won’t derail.

Given the string section’s proficiency in the G major, I’m surprised that the Left Hand Concerto’s massive tuttis in the slow opening section sound relatively thin and ill-tuned (as opposed to the LSO’s centered ensemble under Kertész for Julius Katchen). And for all Le Guay’s power and security, one misses Zimerman’s surface sheen and Fleisher’s gut-wrenching dynamic range (Vanguard Classics, nla).

However, soloist, conductor, and orchestra shine in the rarer, and roughly contemporaneous, Second Piano Concerto of Ervín Schulhoff, shaking up the wild and woolly outer movements, playing fast and loose with the over-the-top percussion writing and setting the composer’s purposeful primitivism ablaze. The finale’s extended violin/piano duet conveys enough of a ‘gypsy’ atmosphere without vulgar slipping and sliding. My only criticism concerns the slow movement’s underplayed string ostinati that lack the rhythmic firmness and definition of the Prague RSO accompanying Jan Simon. Although the latter’s finale clocks in much slower than here, its heavier tread still swings, allowing more breathing-room for Schulhoff’s upholstered orchestration. Still, Le Guay’s unflagging endurance and powerful fingerwork easily set reference standards.