This second of three Naxos discs of Walter Gieseking’s pre-war concerto recordings documents a period when his repertoire was a good deal wider than it became in later years. A newspaper critic described Gieseking’s performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 at a 1931 London concert as ‘beautifully scaled… in which the details were closely related and subtly articulated… without any forced emphasis of its features’, qualities also to be heard in this Berlin recording of 1936. Gieseking’s 1932 recording of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is light of touch and poetic rather than bombastic. The 1937 recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 was described at the time as ‘deft and trim’, emphasizing the work’s youthful energy. Volume 1 is available on Naxos 8.111110.