‘Few composers have so determinedly avoided popularity as Busoni’, noted Bryce Morrison just over a decade ago (11/13). But is this reputation for impenetrability justified? True, Busoni can distance listeners with contrapuntal rigour and seriousness of purpose. But his music also has audience-friendly elements, including Lisztian virtuosity and a wide range of moods. And as performed by Peter Donohoe (supported, in the Fantasia contrappuntistica, by Karl Lutchmayer), it seems unusually approachable.

Donohoe’s bravura certainly keeps us riveted by the extreme torrents of sound. And he just as successfully brings out the music’s varied palette, from the poignant simplicity that opens the First Sonatina to the fury of the Fantasia’s closing Stretta, from the flash of pre-Gershwinesque whimsy in the Chopin Variations to the clear-sighted sobriety of the Sonatina brevis (only on the digital release). True, his use of the sostenuto pedal toward the beginning of the Bach-Busoni D minor Toccata seems obtrusive; and the bass lines overpower the ending of the Prelude and Fugue that follows. Otherwise, there’s little to fault. Karl Lutchmayer’s performance of the Second Sonatina is a fine addition, artfully balancing the music’s craggy profile and its billows of mist.

That said, this recording faces strong competition. In the sonatinas and Variations, Marc-André Hamelin’s lucid performances set a standard difficult to meet (Hyperion, 11/13). As for the Fantasia contrappuntistica, its primary variants – the single-piano ‘definitive edition’ and its two-piano near twin – have been well served since their earliest recordings. That’s surprising: often, pioneering accounts of recondite repertoire seem off the mark when we come to know the music better. Not so with this piece. The first recording of the two-piano version, by Peter Serkin (in his teens) and Richard Goode (not much older), remains astonishing for its deft conversational spirit, something we don’t get from the more seasoned Donohoe and Lutchmayer. And APR has recently resurrected the premiere recording of the definitive edition, by a similarly youthful Alfred Brendel, which reveals an otherworldliness – what David Fanning calls ‘hypnotic intimacy’ (11/24) – similarly absent from this new recording. I wish, too, that Chandos had been more forthcoming about editorial decisions in the Fantasia, and clearer about which of the three versions of the Chopin Variations is included (it is, in fact, the one with 10 variations). All in all, however, this new release is an appealing contribution to the Busoni catalogue.