What happened to the great Russian composer-pianist tradition in the decades after the death of Scriabin and the emigration of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, and before the advent of Shostakovich and Prokofiev’s return? Step forward Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962). As a pianist his legacy has always been more or less secure, thanks mainly to the aura of his Bach recordings. As an arranger, too, he is no stranger to piano buffs – for a jaw-dropping treat, track down Lazar Berman in Feinberg’s working of the Scherzo from Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique. But as a composer? You would have to have invested in the two BIS CDs of his 12 piano sonatas, shared between Nikolaus Samaltanos and Christophe Sirodeau. Failing that, you could now go for the tried-and-tested Hamelin brand, reassured that the more notes per second – and Feinberg is up there with the notiest of them – the more the Canadian virtuoso is in his element.

Five of the first six sonatas (composed between 1915 and 1923) are in a single movement, and instantly the example of Scriabin comes to mind. Harmonies, textures and gestures soon confirm the affinity, which is unsurprisingly especially strong in the first two sonatas. But then the three-movement Third Sonata detonates the Scriabin legacy, maximalising and integrating it with a heroic-complexitist trajectory, above all in a finale that throws down the gauntlet to the most intrepid of piano tigers (Feinberg was himself from Odessa, cradle of so many of that breed). After that, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Sonatas are a mite less extravagant but still determined to cultivate exotic new varieties in their respective steamingly chromatic hothouses.

Hamelin does far more than tame these pianistic leviathans. He gives them momentum, character and individuality. As it happens, Samaltanos and Sirodeau have little or nothing to fear from the comparison. All three pianists have plenty of aces up their sleeves, and if Hamelin has some extra trump cards in terms of sheer bite, finesse and imaginative pedalling, then the BIS pair still offer a very personal reaction to Feinberg’s mysticism and craziness. So might the recording quality prove a deciding factor? No, because both are fine, while at times in both the piano is audibly – and wholly understandably – under strain in the top octave. The two issues also have equally informative, indeed usefully complementary booklet notes. So it’s time to dust off that most annoying of clichés: you really need both, not least because Hamelin reinstates the original manuscript version of the first two movements of the Third Sonata.