MUSIC AND DANCE

BEETHOVEN: Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5. Gina Bachauer, piano; London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Dorati and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. Mercury Living Presence 432 018-2. Even the vivid, chrome-plated Living Presence sound isn’t enough to make these 1962-63 recordings musically competitive in the 1991 Beethoven concerto jungle. Bachauer is solid, clear and rhythmically alert but doesn’t display a great deal of poetry outside the cadenzas. Dorati’s accompaniment is shrill and brusque in the G-major; Skrowaczewski offers a saner, more classical backdrop in No. 5. Only Mercury fanatics need bother.