Shura Cherkassky was introduced to Nimbus by Wilfred Stiff, then a director of the London agent Ibbs & Tillett. Wilfred recognised a young label pushing ahead fast at the transition point between LP and CD, one with a fondness for artists whose careers were waning. Accordingly, he dispatched one of his most prestigious names to the Nimbus Studio.

Cherkassky was at that time acknowledged as one of the ‘great’ generation whose undoubted king was Horowitz, but after a long, notable career that began in his mid-teens, his popularity in the concert hall and recording studio had fallen. Shura’s late career was in need of a final boost. Cherkassy’s first visit lasted four days - 31 January to 3 February 1981, the results of that session were released on LP, but never on CD. They are once again available in Volume 1 of this series (NI 7112).

For this second session once again he stayed in the big house, having taken one look at Monmouth’s finest hotel - The King’s Head - and declared ‘Oh no, I won’t be happy here!’. The studio and piano, a 1969 Hamburg Steinway, were set up as before. It was a studio so completely unlike the characterless spaces he had famously grown to decry. Here there was no sterile barrier to his inspiration. The grand Victorian reception room at Wyastone Leys served as a spectacular performance space, its full-height windows framing commanding views down the Wye Valley. Shura loved it, signing a copy of his Picture at an Exhibition LP, ‘To everyone in Nimbus with love and the most wonderful feeling of inspiration’.