The Belgian pianist Michel Block (1937-2003) grew up in Mexico enraptured by the Spanish music he heard on the radio. Later he became engulfed in scandal when Arthur Rubinstein, enraged by his jury’s failure to give Block a prize at the 1960 Warsaw Chopin Competition, instantly retaliated with his own special Rubinstein Prize for his favourite, prompting a venomous rumour that Block was his illegitimate son.

But, listening to this incomparable disc, you can easily understand Rubinstein’s anger. As played by Block, Granados’s Spanish Dances, in particular, become among the most magical and seductive miniatures in the repertoire, the chiming magic of No 4 a wonder of confidentiality, No 10 (once closely associated with Iturbi) emerging as if through some dream-like opalescent haze. Such free thinking, ease and fluidity are radically different to Alicia de Larrocha’s blinding rhythmic force and clarity but I like to think that that most generous-hearted of artists would have delighted in playing so markedly different to her own. Block’s softly crooning rather than openly singing sound can make your head spin, so seductive are his colour and inflection, and you will search far and wide for more sheerly beautiful playing.

It only remains for me to add that Block, like Fiorentino and Sánchez, paid a price for not being addicted to the limelight, leaving the stage early in his career for virtual oblivion. If Piano Classics can winkle out Block’s legendary recording of Iberia, they would add to their already superb service.