The Prokofiev Concerto No. 1, so often just a virtuoso display vehicle, is brilliantly played with precise articulation at blistering tempos. Even more impressive is the way Katz invests the slow movement and quiet passages with poetry, revealing a luscious tone, masterly legato, and a sonic depth that extends to the piano's repeated top notes, which in other hands often sound like clangerous plonks. Martha Argerich's acclaimed EMI recording with Charles Dutoit offers dazzling pianism, but it's undercut both by laid-back conducting that softens the barbaric aspects of the piece, and by EMI's back-of-the-hall engineering. Here, the 1958 stereo sound may be dated but it's close-up and immediate. And if Boult's orchestra lacks the polish of Dutoit's Montreal band, the conductor's interpretation is more idiomatic.

That Boult was a first-class exponent of Russian music is proved again in his first-rate accompaniment to the Khachaturian Concerto. The touchstone here is William Kapell's extraordinary 1946 account with Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony, superbly transferred in RCA's William Kapell Edition. It's a more overtly virtuoso rendition than Katz's slightly more expansive version, which benefits hugely from his poetic insights and tonal beauty. But Katz also bristles with demonic energy where the music calls for it. The pluses should also include stereo sound, dated but impactful. A minus is the prominence of the flexatone in the slow movement; it sounds like a deranged whistler and is thankfully missing from the Kapell recording. The fillers are lovely works, gorgeously performed.

If this disc whets your appetite for more by this fine pianist, there's an excellent Barbirolli Society CD of the Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto with John Barbirolli, and a similarly delectable pairing of Brahms and Franck Violin Sonatas with Henryk Szeryng on Cembal d'amour. Best of all, the label plans to release private recordings of Katz in concert.