Edward Greenfield warmly praised these performances five years ago, and I welcome their reissue on Cd with no less enthusiasm. Ousset would not be Ousset without overbrimming strength, drive and sparkle. But I was still more impressed by her ruminative poetry and acutely sensitive interplay with the orchestra. She's always had a special affinity with Rattle and the CBSO, and here they reveal the true worth of music that can, in some hands, sound merely superficial. My colleague did in fact find the piano too forwardly placed for his own liking, but this didn't worry me at all on the CD. I thought sumptuous climaxes were just as happily shared and balanced as more intimate exchanges with solo instruments—except, perhaps, for one slightly backward solo violin in Liszt's opening movement. The actual quality of sound I enjoyed both for its warmth and roundness in grandioso bravura no less than for its glinting clarity in both concertos' scherzando florics.
JOC