If the programme sounds familiar, the reality is anything but. The first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 2 No. 3 emerges spacious and unhurried…The Op. 119 Bagatelles are an even greater revelation, each supposed trifle deeply pondered and each springs its surprises. And the Brahms works are glorious…Every track is special…in Rameau’s Le rappel des oiseaux each bird sings out in sweet merriment.

Sometimes I think I’ve been unlucky with my experiences of Sokolov...The Beethoven CD here gives me at least something of what I feel I have been missing: which is to say, not just the familiar orchestral range of volume and timbre, the exceptional rhythmic control, the superior articulation, the furious energy and drive, but also a subtlety of weighting and a sense of fantasy at precisely the appropriate structural moments.

The early Beethoven sonata on offer here (Op. 2/3) possesses true grace and elegance, with the slow movement engendering the tenderest of timbres from Sokolov. His way of shaping a phrase is remarkable, not least in the eighth of the Bagatelles, Op. 119, which, with a free tempo and liberal use of rubato, takes on a pleasingly rhapsodic quality...It's not all refined sensitivity, though: Sokolov produces such a monumentally enormous weight to the Rhapsody, Op. 119/4 that I'm surprised the instrument survived the onslaught!