This is Brahms playing of the highest quality. Lars Vogt secures an ideal balance between the intellectual and emotional components of these two epic works…Vogt’s achievement is all the more impressive since he directs the Concerto from the keyboard…Instead of the conventional battle-royal between soloist and orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia respond to the nuances in his playing with solid ensemble and chamber music-like sensitivity.

It’s to Lars Vogt’s immense credit that he knows how to get power from the piano without ponderousness. Part of achieving this comes from taking slightly faster tempos overall, especially in the first and slow movements. Most of it derives from Vogt’s strong, nearly violent way of pouncing on Brahms’s many syncopations. These same pianistic virtues serve to make Brahms’s Handel Variations here the most delightful experience of them I have yet encountered.

Vogt’s approach is robust, shapely and highly rhythmical. He mitigates Brahms’s habitual textural thickness by refusing to pedal through staccato passages. Together with the orchestra, a marvellous plasticity of line is maintained throughout. This pliant rubato is the bedrock of their realisation of the music’s passionate ardour and vast sense of space...What a pleasure to encounter Brahms, so often interpreted as relentlessly earnest, here captured with his eyes brimming with joy.

Once again there is beautifully phrased playing from Vogt and his ensemble ... neatly and imaginatively achieved.