BARTOK: The Three Piano Concertos. Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, piano. Sony Classical SK 66718.

With their peculiar mixture of brains and brawn and complete lack of sentiment, the Bartok Piano Concertos make perfect vehicles for these performers. Bronfman’s formidable technique allows him to practically breeze through the composer’s note barrages while never once doing the virtuoso act. This is pure and literal execution, with plenty of heft and energy (but no pounding), clear articulation (but never brilliance for its own sake) and even a sensitivity to lighter moments, melodic shapes and religious feelings.

Salonen and the Philharmonic flex their muscles, mind the niceties and mine the complexities, always purposefully. The lavish recording seems more suitable to sonorous Rachmaninoff than to acerbic, linear Bartok, but with score in hand, a listener can still make out thickets of detail.