Schoenberg Messiaen Ravel

(...) This new recording of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, thus far unavailable in high resolution, is no doubt the real boon, deserving all our attention. Although by many regarded as ‘contemporary’, we may, after some eighty years and so many follow-on contemporary stuff, question if that’s still correct. My personal view: Not quite. Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique (“a systemized form of atonality which gives equal importance to each of the twelve chromatic tones”) is unique and therefore as ‘classic’ as it remains ‘modern’. (...) This rendition of a visionary composer’s concerto is indisputably worth listening to, over and over again. Indeed, Piemontesi, Knott, and the Orchestra de la Swisse Romande, have reinstated the masterpiece this concerto by all means is. And what is more, the sound quality enhances the intrinsic musical power to a superlative level. (...)

Dazzling Ravel From A Swiss Whizz 
If I tried to count the recordings made of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major since its premiere in 1932, I’d need all my fingers and toes, plus some borrowed from two other people. One finger would suffice, however, for counting the times that Ravel’s jazzy creation has shared an album with such an unlikely, gnarled bedfellow as Schoenberg’s concerto of 1942, with Messiaen’s idiosyncratic bird kaleidoscope Oiseaux exotiques acting as a buffer.
The booklet notes attempt to forge a link by suggesting an American connection, either in inspiration or place of composition. Forget that. What really pulls the crazy trio together — well, two and a half of them — is the opportunity for the classy Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi to be winningly propulsive, nimble and precise.
The Ravel performance is especially dazzling, with gorgeously polished contributions from the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the gifted European-based British conductor, Jonathan Nott.
There’s a similar drive and clarity about Messiaen’s parade of spangled bird calls, further enhanced by a vivid recording notably skilled at documenting the giant reverberations of a tam-tam.