London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Antonio Pappano

Like a ringmaster, Ravel sets his Piano Concerto in G major in motion with a flick of the whip. Here come Basque folk melodies, Spanish panache and American jazz. The fascinating melody in the middle section was a painstaking high-wire act for the composer. Ravel wrote, ‘That flowing phrase! How I worked over it bar by bar! It nearly killed me!' Like Ravel, Bertrand Chamayou studied at the Paris Conservatoire. His fresh, assertive interpretation of the Piano Concerto makes it sound newly written.

Pappano and the LSO follow up their stunning pre-pandemic performances of Vaughan Williams’ Fourth and Sixth Symphonies with the sophisticated, original Fifth. The work deeply moved audiences who heard it at its premiere during World War II, its bittersweet melodies and transcendent climax seemingly offering listeners a vision of future peace.