Volume 3 of Hyperion’s continuing series of Bach transcriptions could hardly be more exhilarating or enterprising. Even when there is much unceremonious pulling of ears and tweaking of noses (notably by Percy Grainger) in these sometimes wildly off-the-wall recreations, their underlying devotion to the cause is rarely in doubt. ‘An Aussie take on Bach’ as Piers Lane puts it in his delightful accompanying essay, ‘they perhaps hark back to a time when it was felt that Baroque and Classical works needed tarting up to appeal to modern ears’. He goes on to stress their intricacy – to a greater or lesser extent all three transcribers were remarkable pianists – saying, perhaps a trifle ruefully, ‘this is piano music, and make no mistake’.

For Grainger the opportunity both to pay tribute and elaborate proves irresistable. His transcription of Cantata 208’s ‘Sheep may safely graze’ will give purists and die-hards, or the sort of PC souls referred to by Kathryn Sturrock in her detailed and sympathetic commentary, an attack of apoplexy. The entire transcription is mischievously out of accord with the original’s simplicity and includes an extravagant harmonic lushness and a sense not only of ‘Blithe Bells’ (his title) but of a blithe spirit happy to outrage all possible conservatives. Yet, as Sturrock argues, surprise so often turns to delight in the majority of these works, and never more so than when played with such an unfailing mix of flamboyance and lucidity.

Piers Lane launches Grainger’s transcription of the D minor Toccata and Fugue with a special sense of its drama and rhetoric and continues with a dazzling alternation of thunder and glitter. Shovelfuls of notes are dispatched with an immaculate brio and virtuoso aplomb and with an open-hearted relish rather than fear of multi-layered textures and registers. The recorded sound, whether in highest treble or lowest bass, is magnificently spacious and resonant and the scholarly work of both Leslie Howard and Robert Quinney is duly acknowledged.

A memorable as well as enticing disc. As Piers Lane puts it: ‘Australia suggests space and something a smidgeon different and adventuresome to me. The transcriptions proffer similar promise.’