You might want to buy this CD for the cover alone. It’s a close-up detail of John Singer Sargent’s wonderful portrait of Catherine Vlasto, her right hand depressing the keys on an upright piano (now identified as Singer’s own Bechstein, though I doubt any slight was intended against Angela Hewitt’s beloved Fazioli!).

A close-up is apt because this is Hewitt close up and personal. Sometimes this pianist can hold you at arm’s length and leave you admiring but uninvolved. Here, she opens her soul. It’s a very personal record in its choice of repertoire and in its execution. Hewitt may have travelled to Germany and spent five days last November recording the 23 more or less short pieces in Kulturstiftung Marienmünster but the impression she conveys is of someone sitting at home on their own as the light fades, playing some favourite music purely for their own enjoyment. Only in a few numbers (two of Falla’s Canciones populares españolas and Grieg’s ‘Ich liebe dich’, for instance) does she seem to admit an audience.

That said, she begins with a passionate account of the Schumann-Liszt ‘Widmung’, ‘one of the greatest piano transcriptions of all time’, claims Hewitt in her genial accompanying essay, a claim with which it is hard to disagree. The 22 further ‘Love Songs’ – all but three are transcriptions of vocal items – mix the familiar with the less well known (the four Richard Strauss songs arranged by Max Reger, for example, and Wilhelm Kempff’s Orpheus’ Lament from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, rather than Sgambati’s Melodie), though the (effective) version of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony cited as ‘arr Angela Hewitt’ sounds identical to the 1998 Edition Peters reduction.

Occasionally, the Fazioli’s tone strikes me as too muscular to convincingly convey tenderness (try ‘Last Spring’) and the intimate setting is compromised, but this is a lovely recital, one to return to often, and as a bonus the pianist includes in her booklet the complete lyrics of all the songs (with their English translations). ‘It means a lot to me to present you with this recording,’ she concludes, ‘especially as it was made during a time of great isolation for us all. Love is what keeps us going – love in all its forms.’ Amen to that.