Many years ago when I was a schoolboy, my then piano teacher Ronald Smith returned from his studies in Paris to tell me of a pianist he described as “as great as Horowitz but more musical”. The comparison may have seemed audacious, but listening to Naxos’s first volume of Gilels’s recordings dating from 1935-51 my teacher’s comment slid back into focus. For here, in performance after performance, is the sort of playing that made Rubinstein, on hearing the teenage Gilels in Russia, exclaim, “if that boy ever comes to America I might as well pack my bags and retire”. Even in dated sound an “elemental virtuoso gift” and a “sonority rich in noble metal” are omnipresent. And whether you hear Gilels in his exquisite Rameau, the thunderous brilliance of his Godowsky or in the way his decorations in Smetana’s A minor Polka shimmer like the beating of a hummingbird’s wings, you will hear a nonpareil pianism. True, in years to come Gilels would find greater depth than his enviably spruce and immaculately turned Mozart conveys, but even here the playing is of an aristocratic distinction and finesse. A more engulfing and incandescent Ravel Toccata can be heard “live” on an Olympia disc of recordings dating from 1930-84 but all in all these performances is a reminder of this grandest of musical titans. Ward Marston’s transfers come up excellently and special thanks go to Judith Rayner for the loan of discs from her priceless collection.