Recording of the Week, Francesco Piemontesi performs works for piano and orchestra by Ravel, Messiaen, and Schoenberg

One of the more successful orchestral collaborations in recent times has certainly been Jonathan Nott's tenure with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, including a fine recording of music by Debussy, which was warmly reviewed by my colleague Katherine last year. Their latest recorded venture sees them teaming up with Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi for a trio of works for piano and orchestra by Ravel, Messiaen, and Schoenberg.

Immediately, the first movement of the Ravel Concerto sets out many of the qualities that are evident throughout the album, not the least of which is the exemplary openness of textures and consistently immaculate balance between piano and orchestra. Every facet of Ravel's orchestration can be clearly heard, from the gentlest of tam-tam strokes to a mesmerising passage involving a series of harp harmonics. Indeed, the piece is peppered with so many exceptional moments for individual members of the orchestra that I can only mention but a few, including a remarkable rendition of the notoriously high-wire horn solo (immediately preceded by some exuberant flutter-tonguing from piccolo, E flat clarinet and trumpet), and a pleasingly jazzy bassoon solo (Ravel specifically marks this solo "vibrato" and this is clearly taken to heart by the bassoonist here!). The whole performance is incredibly characterful throughout, from the Gershwin-inspired "blue" notes in the first movement to the Petrushka-like bustle of the third movement, with gliding trombone and virtuosic bassoons a-plenty.

This continues into the second movement, with what I can honestly say must be the most heartbreakingly tender account of the cor anglais solo that I can remember hearing. Piemontesi more than plays his part here too: his delicate cascade of demisemiquavers flows beautifully without ever becoming laboured. Such is his control of touch that when the cor anglais solo ends, and his part is marked to drop in dynamic from piano to pianissimo, you can actually notice the reduction in volume.

The orchestra is afforded even more opportunities to shine in Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques. Nott ensures that all aspects of Messiaen's extensive percussion section fully register, from the glittering glockenspiel and xylophone in the passages where they accompany the upper woodwinds, to the subtlest of details in the gongs, temple block, and woodblock. Even more so than in the Ravel, it's quite impressive how Nott and the estimable recording team behind him at Pentatone have managed this level of clarity: Messiaen frequently layers the sounds of several birds simultaneously, each with their distinctive rhythms, and yet rather than allowing matters to descend into a cacophonous squawk of birdsong, Nott manages to make sense of it all, attaining an admirable combination of ecstatic radiance in places and a cheeky playfulness elsewhere. The bold conclusion to the work, where Messiaen steadily repeats the same chord thirty-one times, takes on an almost hypnotic transcendence.

I shouldn't ignore Piemontesi's role in all of this: the work is essentially structured so that it alternates between orchestral sections and long stretches for solo piano, and in these latter parts Piemontesi is utterly beguiling. Just as in the Ravel, his strength seems to be that the quieter he plays, the more he draws you in and makes you listen. The complex rhythms that Messiaen deploys which look frightening on paper are made to sound like the most natural, inevitable progressions, and again the transparency of textures is nothing short of extraordinary.

I fear that after my lengthy appreciation for the first two works on the album, I have left woefully insufficient space to sing the praises of the final piece, Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. I can't really imagine a more persuasive account than this one: every phrase in the orchestra is shaped beautifully by Nott, and Piemontesi despatches even the most fiendishly awkward parts of Schoenberg's piano writing with effortless ease. In theory this combination of pieces might seem like a somewhat eclectic grouping, and yet in practice it works beautifully, all held together by Piemontesi's impeccable solo contributions and the authoritative guiding hand of Nott at the helm.