It’s just not fair. The pianist is marvellous and the programme is attractive. But the brittle, drier-than-dry recorded sound really doesn’t help. Alexander Ullman was the winner of the 2017 International Franz Liszt Competition in Utrecht and the 2011 one in Budapest (confusingly there is more than one International Liszt Competition; in fact there are more than two). He combines sensitivity and agility at the highest level, which should make a programme like this one the perfect vehicle. His Nutcracker comes very close to Pletnev’s own in its clarity and even tempos, and his dazzling account of Petrushka, though not on a par with Pollini’s sonic boom (who is?), very nearly deserves a place alongside the finest of recent recordings, such as Melnikov’s (who retains the edge for range of colour).

Aye, there’s the rub. Whether or not it’s entirely the fault of the recording is hard to judge; but throughout the disc the timbre remains resolutely piano-bound, and for transcriptions the one thing you can’t do without is the capacity to suggest orchestral colour. If characterisation were all, it would be very different, because in this respect Ullman is unfailingly balletic. Compare, for instance, the grace of his en pointe take on Prokofiev’s Cinderella to Boris Berman’s bulkier textures. As for Guido Agosti’s flashy but over-conventionalised transcription of Firebird – shown up as such by the juxtaposition with the composer’s own of Petrushka – Ullman is less effective in bringing out the excitement of the ‘Danse infernale’ or the exuberance of the shimmering tremolos of the finale. For more panache and flair in this instance, go with Alexandre Kantorow.

But it does seem unfair to find fault with the playing when the recorded sound itself is so limiting. I can’t wait to hear Ullman under better conditions.