Now well into his 90s, Brendel the essayist remains on compelling form. In a sharp series of thoughts about Busoni, he notes of the Fantasia contrappuntistica: ‘We can listen to this work with two different ears: one that registers Busoni’s audacity in competing with Bach’s towering mastery [the Fantasia being in large part a completion of The Art of Fugue]; the other one may let itself be disarmed and carried away by the aura of mystery brought about by an inspiring performance.’ That’s surely true, and both experiences are strikingly captured in this legendary recording.

I say ‘legendary’, not only because Brendel never re-recorded the work but because of the rarity of the original LP. He himself lost track of it, as he told me when he signed my copy ‘after 25 years’, following a recital in Manchester some time in the late 1970s. The recording dates from 1953 and was first issued on the short-lived Saratoga Springs-based label SPA (Society of Participating Artists, Inc). APR’s own Mike Spring traces SPA’s history, and Brendel’s part in it, in a fascinating accompanying essay.

‘Legendary’ could easily have been one of Busoni’s performance instructions, given that he peppered his score with exhortations such as ‘imploring’, ‘anxious’, ‘cheering up’, ‘lingering’, ‘mystically’, ‘submissively’, ‘like a vague reflection’ and so on. As Brendel notes, mysticism is the key – he might have added that this was the very quality Busoni missed when he heard Frederick Stock’s orchestration of the work – and it certainly radiates from his playing. The subtlest ebb and flow accompanies Busoni’s moves into and beyond the outer limits of tonality’s gravitational pull; almost uncanny shadings within pianississimo serve to convey the utmost interiority. Others may have matched (though not surpassed, I fancy) Brendel’s contrapuntal clarity. None, in my experience, has rivalled him for hypnotic intimacy. In terms of consummate pianism, Levit is outstanding, but mysticism is not on his menu. Busoni’s best-known pupil, Egon Petri, recorded the Fantasia a couple of years after Brendel, but truth to tell, his playing is smothered in all-purpose rhetoric and tonally grating at any level above forte.

On the LP I still own and treasure, Brendel added the Busoni transcription of Ich ruf’ zu dir. This simply defies description, such is the hush, the reverence, the sheer spirituality with which he endows it. It takes my breath away now, just as it did when I first heard it.

It would be nice to wax as lyrical about Liszt’s Weihnachtsbaum, and Brendel’s rendition, from another SPA recording, is certainly worthy of many plaudits. For 1873 76 the music certainly has moments of forward-looking proto-Impressionism, but for the most part it is curiously anonymous and certainly not on a level of inspiration with the third volume of the Années de pèlerinage, composed a year later.

Still, I could not be more grateful for the appearance of this CD, beautifully transferred as it is. It tells us things about Brendel’s artistry that scarcely any other recording does. More importantly, it tells us things about Busoni that I seriously doubt can be accessed from any other source.