Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia should have recorded all of Mozart's piano music for four hands, which includes several neglected masterpieces. This disc reflects their ideal partnership, two artists of great sensitivity collaborating in performances that feature constant interplay of parts, alertness to each other's work, and superb playing as individuals. The Concerto for Two Pianos ripples along without a care in the world, just as it should, and the English Chamber Orchestra doesn't seem to care that nobody is conducting it. The pieces without orchestra are a bit less significant (as is the Concerto for Three Pianos), but the playing is so beautiful you won't care.

It takes only 10 discs to contain the complete solo Decca recordings of Radu Lupu, one of the great pianists of the late 20th century. It's also amazing that these few recordings stretch over a quarter of a century, from 1971 to 1995, making Lupu one of the most infrequently recorded of the great pianists; even Argerich and Michelangeli have outdistanced him.

Decca proudly presents the entire recorded legacy of Radu Lupu, one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation. Released to celebrate his 70th birthday, this 28CD set shows Lupu in his prime, performing works by the composers who built his musical world – Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms.

Lupu’s splendid pianism thrives among the recorded competition. His port wine sonority and leonine temperament perfectly suit the red-blooded outer movements. Zubin Mehta elicits warm, vibrant playing from the responsive Israel Philharmonic. The solo items are impressively polished and refined, albeit without the dramatic tension and dynamic…

This box set of all Mozart's mature Sonatas for piano and violin is astonishing. It reveals the deep pleasure of music making, the mutual respect between two outstanding musical personalities of different generations, and some of the greater insights into sublime music that have been set down. The balance and the joy are breath-taking, and from beginning to end, it's hard to imagine the works being played differently.

These two works form a perfect, contrasting pairing of the two most sublime piano compositions for four hands in existence: the Mozart ineffably sunny yet majestic, in a brilliant D major, the Schubert Fantasia achingly melancholy and beautiful, played by two musicians who are characterised by expressive understatement. In my experience, Lupu has since, in later years, become inclined to give detached, almost indifferent performances which verge on the remote, whereas here he and Perahia play with both strength and delicacy without ever giving in to excessive rubato or cheap, overt emotionalism.

Ms Hendricks has allied herself with one of the truly great pianists of the last thirty years, and a masterly Schubertian at that: Radu Lupu. His Schubert impromptus on Decca are to my mind only challenged by Brendel. I can’t remember hearing him as accompanist anywhere else, which makes his partnership with Barbara Hendricks special indeed. He doesn’t dominate the proceedings as some other soloists have tended to do but neither is he too reticent. It seems that they have found a good balance. Once or twice I reacted to his approach. Der Wanderer an den Mond seems too jolting but otherwise there are no eccentricities.

Although these are unquestionably performances of impeccable musicality and taste, I found that Goldberg's tendency to underplay his part at times led to a little disappointment. In the A minor Sonatina of 1816, with its almost obsessional pathos, the two instrumentalists are models of classical purity, but the Pole is a bit static in the slow movement. Their hypersensitivity and immaculately polished use of tone are employed to keep the music within limited emotional confines. Goldberg's reticent way with the A major Sonata-Duo in particular makes the piece emerge as rather small-scale. The recorded balance between the two is relaxed and pleasing in these pieces.

Perahia’s immaculate technique, stylistic surety, and classical symmetry are remarkably consistent. While his tone is always singing and rounded, lyrical melodies and decorative passages alike convey a slight diamond-like edge to the peak of crescendos or an emphatic accent. This helps achieve an attractive fusion of unruffled poise and dramatic tension. You hear this quite readily in the B-flat K. 456 concerto ‘s first movement, or in the carefully pedaled trills and restatement of the main theme in K. 595’s heavenly Larghetto, also sampled here. Perahia’s symbiotic musical rapport with Radu Lupu in the two-piano concerto and the two-piano version of the concerto for three pianos should not go unmentioned.

– Jed Distler