As one might expect from someone hailed as Horowitz's successor, Matsuev holds that most titanic of piano concertos in a passionate embrace, lavish with his rubato, devastatingly certain in his articulation, sensitive to colour and balance, aware of how to pace and thus make coherent the architecture of this massive work. Importantly, for all his physical power and energy, he never makes a hard sound. There's commensurately sympathetic playing from the Mariinsky, who also match Matsuev's deft, vibrant musicianship in the brittler Rhapsody.