There’s something about Gottlieb Wallisch’s stern and spiky reading of the Haydn E flat Sonata, No 59 (old No 49), that evokes Rudolf Serkin’s live Carnegie Hall recording. For all its integrity, it lacks humour. That’s an issue of dynamics and articulation rather than tempo. Compare Wallisch’s emphatic phrasing in the minuet finale to Hamelin’s slower yet suppler rendition and you’ll hear for yourself. A heavy, charmless voice intones the C major No 60’s Adagio’s cantabile lines rather than an eloquent bel canto artist. Its opening Allegro is prosaic, square and slow: no doubt to accommodate the treacherous right-hand thirds that both Hamelin and Richter dispatch at a bona fide allegro. The D major (No 61) fares better via Wallisch’s excellent projection of the Andante’s woodwind-like bass-lines and his incisive delineation of the Presto’s cross-rhythmic phrases that other pianists flatten out.

In the F minor Variations, Wallisch’s poised pianism, suave tempo relationships and keen attention to the music’s bountiful harmonic inventiveness offer much to savour, although some may prefer the wider expressive and dynamic scope of Emanuel Ax’s recent Sony recording. If the outer movements of the great E flat Sonata (No 62) ultimately lack Hamelin’s transparency and buoyant momentum, one must credit Wallisch’s power and propulsion in the Allegro’s development section and canny timing of the Presto’s surprising silences. Better still is Wallisch’s fluent, rhythmically pointed and heartfelt rendition of the Andante in the remote key of E major. Linn’s surround-sound production gives a realistic and close-up sense of both instrument and venue.