This endlessly fascinating collection is played with style and incredible subtlety...I don't recall ever giving a recording the full ten stars. But then, I hadn't heard Hamelin play his own work.

Here is piano-playing of such an exalted standard I seriously wonder if anything comparable exists on record. I wait impatiently for a Hamelin piano concerto.

Despite the phenomenally difficult demands that Hamelin creates for himself, I never get the feeling that any of it is superficial virtuosity for its own sake. It's abundantly evident that there is an intelligent mind at work with a vast knowledge of the repertoire, alongside a wicked sense of humour.

facility and keyboard wizardry never quite yield to anarchy on an ensnaring collection of Hamelin’s piano pieces that are the musical equivalent of a trainspotter’s paradise, full of musical quotations both scholarly and mischievous.