Volume 5 of five two-CD sets completes Christian Leotta’s cycle of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas. He will shortly have played the sonatas 15 times in public; and even in a fiercely competitive marketplace his devotion to his task shines with an exceptional musicianship.

Generally speaking, he reminds us that in Italy, the land of operatic glory, pianists tend towards an aristocratic approach, one which scorns undue idiosyncrasy or heavily personalised gestures. And so it is that in the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata, his flowing Adagio allows for a subtle coloration and inflection as natural as it is pensive and subdued. Indeed, such is the fine balance between sense and sensibility that you may well find yourself listening afresh to this familiar masterpiece. He probes to the very heart of the Largo from Op 2 No 2 and his gentle rather than aggressive sparkle in the following Scherzo ensures that nothing is pushed beyond its natural limit.

He can also break out into the light, showing a robust humour in the finale of Op 10 No 2, as also in the finale of Op 31 No 3, where his brio combines with a scrupulous care for the score. In Op 54, where a touch of whimsy comes between the two mountain peaks of the Waldstein and Appassionata Sonatas, Leotta takes a firm if arguably severe hand to Beethoven’s playfulness. And here I missed something of Kempff’s mercurial genius (and never more so than in his live Queen Elizabeth Hall recital – BBC Legends, 2/01). Again, you may feel that everything is kept on too tight a rein in Op 101, though the third-movement Adagio is finely poised and speculative.

Overall, Paul Lewis’s is the more wide-ranging and comprehensive cycle but there is so much to admire here in these eminently serious performances, particularly when they are so well if closely recorded.