Together with the Op 76 Capricci and Intermezzi, Opp 116-119 form a unique, profound cornerstone of the repertoire. Bold, turbulent and impassioned, or lost in bittersweet reverie, their poetic essence was memorably characterised by the essayist William Ritter who described them as ‘like the golden lustre of parks in autumn and the austere black and white of winter walks’.

Such romantic profundity quickly exposes a pianist’s strengths and weaknesses, but I am happy to say that in Stefan Vladar, the 39-year-old Viennese pianist, these works have found a well-nigh ideal interpreter. Nothing is false or gilded (as it sometimes is in Julius Katchen’s celebrated cycle for Decca) and if Vladar is scrupulous to the score he is also free and rhapsodic, his rubato expansive yet as natural as breathing.

What pained introspection he finds in Op 116 No 2, what sudden and defiant rising from the ashes of despair in No 3. He can roar out Brahms’s romantic storms to the heavens yet whisper his heart-stopping confidences with a rare inwardness and commitment. He is memorable in the sepulchral utterance of Op 116 No 5 and if his tempi are marginally too fast to capture fully the poetic heart of Op 117, he is back on track for Opp 118 and 119. He is more than equal to Op 118’s final Intermezzo (an epic in miniature) and ends with a performance of the great E flat Rhapsody that sweeps despondency into oblivion.

The recordings are spacious and resonant and although I would never want to be without Radu Lupu’s legendary set of these late masterpieces, Vladar’s warm and generous nature runs him close. And, unlike Lupu, he includes the Op 116 set.