Stephen Hough (piano), Minnesota Orchestra/ Osmo Vänskä Hyperion CDA 67711/2 (2 CDs) *****

Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series, which first saw the light of day 20 years ago, here reaches its 50th issue.

But Hyperion has moved in unexpected ways, and has only now, 120-something pieces on, reached the great romantic warhorse you might have expected at the beginning: Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. The honour of serving up the best-known of romantic piano concertos falls to Stephen Hough, who, in concert tapings with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä, responds with playing of consistently unhackneyed freshness. The lesser works (with three versions of the slow movement of the Second Concerto – the original, Siloti’s truncation and an abridgement by Hough himself) are equally fine. See url.ie/4qdb