![Alexandre Tharaud](https://media.guim.co.uk/273da4181742378326c2cbc9625b19ba8d47de19/0_0_9318_5591/1000.jpg)
Having recorded all of Ravel’s solo piano music, it was natural for Alexandre Tharaud to turn his attention to the two piano concertos.
![Artwork for Ravel Piano Concertos](https://media.guim.co.uk/667d26bc2ff9c74b1a8d09f4a70e81050a7d728e/0_0_4000_3567/1000.jpg)
The performances are all that you would expect from this unfailingly stylish pianist, especially in the outer movements of the G major concerto, played with as much glitter and fizz as anyone could want, perhaps a little too much in the first movement, which seems rather brittle as a result. But the central Adagio is rather prosaic, as if Tharaud is unwilling to dig too deeply beneath the music’s suave surfaces, and in the Concerto for the Left Hand too, a dimension seems to be missing; what is one of Ravel’s darkest scores never suggests that sense of menace.
However, the inclusion of Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain makes a honeyed bonus, with Louis Langrée and the French National Orchestra conjuring a luscious, evocative backdrop to the spangled solo piano writing, in which Tharaud is perfectly in his element.
Stream on Apple Music (above) or Spotify