Nelson Freire, the legendary if reclusive Brazilian pianist, complements his earlier Decca Chopin recital (8/02) with the Op 10 Etudes and the Second Sonata, adding the Barcarolle for good measure. Sadly, his playing no longer suggests the matchless fluency of his youth and if there are intermittent poetic compensations there is also an inability to break into the light, into the insouciance and joie de vivre of the finest Chopin players.

The First Etude may be lively and varied but it breaks down into groups of notes rather than maintaining a more satisfactory continuity and momentum. No 2 is less than ideally intact (and not just in the concluding bars), without the flawless mechanism of the young Ashkenazy or the chill perfection of Pollini. More positively, Freire is glittering and vivacious in No 5 and warmly sympathetic to the baleful, near-Wagnerian chromaticism of No 6; but both the Barcarolle and Sonata are cavalier when not disengaged.

In the former his rubato is convulsive and self-conscious, a far cry from the regal Lipatti, and his thunderous return of the Sonata’s Funeral March is an intrusive idiosyncrasy in an otherwise flavourless reading. Decca’s sound and presentation are excellent but virtually all these performances lack the frisson and brilliance Freire achieves when he plays with Martha Argerich, his incomparable partner in musical glory.