Hyperion’s Herz recital includes a frontispiece showing a demure young lady disconsolately turning away from her piano (The Reluctant Pianist by William A Breakspeare). But there is nothing reluctant about Philip Martin, whose performances replace obvious dazzle with an engaging warmth and affection coupled with a mischievous twinkle when required. Herz’s note-spinning and ear-tickling virtuosity was anathema to more serious composers (including Schumann) who deplored what they saw as mere frivolity, the writing of a composer easily carried away in virtuoso small-talk when not lapsing into an insipid charm. All the same, it’s hard to sustain a puritanical outlook when listening to the Variations on Rossini’s La Cenerentola and if Martin hardly makes your ears waggle in disbelief like, say, Earl Wild’s blow-your-socks-off brilliance, his gentler virtues create their own ambience and reward. The Nocturnes are simple, Field-like creations, their uneventful moods continued in the two Ballades, while Le mouvement perpetual opens with an Alkanesque march before whirling you away through a Mendelssohnian maze of notes. Even here Martin is hard-pressed to keep you on the qui vive, but his fleet and musicianly virtues are winning attributes and, as always from this source, he has been ideally presented and recorded.