Ivana Gavric´’s debut disc offered an intense, idiomatic account of Janácek’s In the Mists that made me curious as to how she’d handle this composer’s other piano works. Her follow-up recital answers that question quite positively. In the Sonata, she heightens the speech-like phrasing by overtly differentiating the composer’s sometimes idiosyncratic articulation markings. Similarly, she varies the second movement’s dynamic extremes with alluring changes in tone colour that compensate for a slightly too brisk tempo that sidesteps the music’s desolate aura.

The intimacy, finely honed nuance, conversational flow and subtle underlining of the composer’s harmonic surprises that Gavric´ brings to each of the short pieces comprising On an Overgrown Path prove more memorable still. Some of Gavric´’s phrase-tapering in Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales lessens the impact of the composer’s own indications for tempo modification. She also slightly pacifies No 7’s soaring climaxes, and doesn’t really observe No 5’s ‘breath mark’ commas that are intended to clear the textural air, so to speak. Still, Gavric´ obviously revels in the piano-writing’s sensuality and gentle resonance. The same can be said for the first movement of the Prokofiev sonata, with its extensive lyrical passages.

Although Gavric´ sustains the Scherzo’s motoric momentum perfectly, she primarily sets her sights upon connecting the melodic dots that leap from one register to the next, while her attention to the Andante’s dynamic hairpins reveals a tuneful subtext that’s not often perceived. The Vivace finale bristles with wit and light-fingered transparency, although some listeners might prefer additional ferocity and steel-edged bravura in the manner of Sviatoslav Richter, as well as less opaque, more vividly detailed engineering.