‘So sensitive and personal’ – that’s how Patrick Rucker described Schubert’s F minor Fantasie in the hands of Samson Tsoy and his partner Pavel Kolesnikov (Harmonia Mundi, 7/24). It’s no surprise that the same qualities dominate Tsoy’s debut solo album.

Or perhaps it is. After all, the concept behind this carefully organised album – two works in which Brahms adapts the music of Baroque composers, two in which later composers tactfully adapt him – might well have drawn Tsoy into archness. Likewise, the temptation to show off his virtuosity (evident from his rugged YouTube Pictures at an Exhibition) might well have led him to give the Handel Variations the bravura it gets from so many other pianists. But instead, from the tender reading of the Brahms-Busoni Herzlich tut mich verlangen (second version) that opens the programme, Tsoy offers an intimate experience, playing up Brahms’s reticence rather than his fervour.

True, the recital is dotted with bursts of light-fingered dazzle – listen to the spring of the repeated notes in the eighth of the Handel Variations. The playing can turn assertive as well – consider his reading of Herzlich tut mich erfreuen, far sturdier than Igor Levit’s (Sony, 10/20). More potent still are the stabs on ‘O Tod’ in the third of the Serious Songs. But what will probably linger most in your mind is Tsoy’s refinement: the elegant touch in the third of the Variations or, at the other end of the timbral spectrum, the steadfast gloom in the second of the Brahms Songs.

Especially impressive is his reading of the Bach-Brahms Chaconne. This left-hand arrangement is rightly considered more modest than the popular Busoni transcription; even so, it is often mined for its grandeur. Not so in this considered performance. It features astonishing resilience (a far cry from the looser, more improvisatory account by Alexandre Kantorow – BIS, 12/21) and scrupulous articulation, but there’s little sign of monumentality.

True, for all the variety of touch and colour, this collection is unrelievedly earnest, and listening in one sitting may be too much for some listeners. But there’s not a thoughtless or careless moment, and those willing to submit to its spell will find it uplifting. Linn’s sound – especially on the Studio Master digital version – is as good as it gets.