Here is the sixth and final volume of all nine Beethoven symphonies heard in the arrangements for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka. It is a timely end to a distinguished series: last May saw the 200th anniversary of the first performance of the Choral Symphony; December 8 was the centenary of the death of Scharwenka.

Tessa Uys is responsible for rescuing these unknown scores from oblivion, having inherited them from her mother, Helga Bassel, a pupil in Berlin of Leonid Kreutzer (1884-1953), who knew Scharwenka well. Her set lay gathering dust until a decade ago when she and Ben Schoeman were invited, at the last minute, to perform the Beethoven-Scharwenka Ninth at the City of London Festival. This is its premiere recording.

Scharwenka was not the first to reduce this mighty score into an effective piano duet – there were at least six others made in the 19th century, the first by Czerny – but I am told by those who have examined others more thoroughly than me that his is the most effective and pianistically resourceful. Furthermore, unlike Liszt’s better-known versions of the Ninth (for solo piano and two pianos, in which he added his own pianistic devices to better convey, as he thought, the spirit of the score), Scharwenka adheres faithfully to the orchestral original.

Through this medium, one hears many strands and voices not always noticeable, particularly true of the last movement. Admittedly, it is often difficult to hear familiar passages without regretting the lack of woodwind colour, say, or the brass section and the simple, raw power of the full orchestra, but the long first movement, intriguingly, could easily now be from one of the late piano sonatas. The Scherzo is, arguably, the most successful of all four movements and might have been conceived as an original piano composition. In the great slow movement, by contrast, one does miss the sustained strings and woodwind. Personally, I don’t think it quite works on the keyboard. Then, perhaps surprisingly, the finale is simply tremendous, a tour de force from both Scharwenka and the two pianists, whose intuitive ensemble and mutual accord can only be achieved by long acquaintance.

This recording – and indeed the previous five volumes – are a significant achievement: chapeau to Somm and the label’s CEO Siva Oke for backing a niche project and these two outstanding musicians, neither of whom has a high public profile, and bringing it to fruition. Ben Connellan, the recording engineer at the Menuhin Hall, Stoke d‘Abernon, and booklet writer Robert Matthew-Walker make their own significant contributions.