The Compact Collection

A quartet of new piano music CDs invites revealing comparisons between four young talents. At first glance, Nadia Cole's all-French programme drew a cynical sneer. Could this be the all-too-familiar formula: "cool looks, cool repertory, minimal talent"? Happily not. Ms Cole focuses each work with impressive confidence and her command of Ravel's eerie "Gaspard de la nuit" – where a hanged corpse and a sniggering dwarf sit back-to-back – suggests both imagination and lightning reflexes. Cole despatches Chabrier's "Scherzo-valse" and Bouré's "Fantasque" with high spirits and her gently pirouetting "Idylle" is close to perfection. Add a malleable Fauré "Ballade", a seamless Ravel "Pavane" and a rippling "Jeux d'Eau", and you have a valuable calling card for a gifted player.

Erato's latest choice for 28-year-old Nikolai Lugansky is Rachmaninov: the C sharp minor Prelude, the 10 Preludes that make up Op 23 and the six Moments musicaux, Op 16. Lugansky's is a suave view of Rachmaninov, fluid in the swift but mournful C minor Prelude from Op 10, unaffected but with a natural mastery of rubato in the E flat major. He empowers his readings with a respectful sense of emotional distance. Overheat Rachmaninov and the flavour evaporates.

But there's a significant difference between avoiding excess and not daring to go too far. In Chopin's colourful "Andante spianato" and "Grande Polonaise", brilliant London-born Freddie Kempf alternates lyricism with bravura playing that is at times breathtaking. Kempf also has the measure of the "Fantasie-Impromptu", but in the four "Ballades" and the "Polonaise-fantasie" he is more circumspect, as if fearful of overstepping the mark.I suspect that in 10 years' time, Kempf's views on the "Ballades" will settle to something more confident and integrated.

One pianist who appears to have integrated the creative aspects of his work is Alexis Weissenberg, whose 1982 Sonata en état de jazz melds Bergian-style Expressionism with ghostly spectres of the tango, the Charleston, the blues and the samba. It was Simon Mulligan's jazz improvising that inspired Weissenberg to search out some of his own music, and the result is a "Mulligan plays Weissenberg" CD and some complex but attractive musical ideas. Mulligan adds his own homage in a sequence of improvisations on music that his mentor composed for a French musical comedy called La Fugue. It's fun, but Weissenberg's own music is more gripping. I'd start with the shimmering "Le regret", preferably with a good wine to hand.

• Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier, Satie Nadia Cole Decca 769 748 021-2
• Rachmaninov Nikolai Lugansky Erato 8573-85770-2
• Chopin Freddie Kempf BIS BIS-CD-1160
• Weissenberg, Simon Mulligan Nimbus NI 5688