Drama of diverse kinds might be an appropriate description here. The recording reflects the differences, too, because the sound varies from piece to piece. Andreas Haefliger opens with Schubert’s Sonata and immediately seizes the potential for theatrical expression. An overtly dramatic work, the outer movements run the gamut from fortissimo to pianissimo with many a hairpin accent to add emphasis. Haefliger doesn’t shirk the issues presented, projecting them through elasticity in phrasing and a strong bass line.

Responses to the slow movement are mildly dispassionate. It is supremely well played with changes in colour to acknowledge modulations. But Haefliger eschews a wider expressive range that is possible through micro shadings of tone and dynamics. He tends to distance himself from knotty aspects. A subjectively cool slow movement of Mozart’s K570 may pass muster, but the Arietta of Beethoven’s Op 111 is short changed because it requires deeper emotional involvement.

The first movement, though, is forcefully potent, a reminder that Haefliger is able to communicate the histrionic side of music. It stands him in excellent stead in Thomas Adès’s concentrated work, described by the composer as ‘an explosion of John Dowland’s lute song In Darknesse Let Mee Dwell’.

Dowland authority Diana Poulton calls the piece ‘the most poignant expression of anguished grief’ but Adès first rents its poignancy asunder to expose in stark terms an anguished grief of his own before closing with the last two bars of the original ending. Haefliger is superbly lucid and picturesque, his control exemplary. The notes towards the end are graded to suggest desolation and Dowland’s unresolved finish just floats into air.