Five years ago, Ward Marston released substantial fragments from a demonstration of the Symphonic Dances given by Rachmaninov to help Eugene Ormandy prepare the premiere (10/18). This was not the familiar version for two pianos; rather, the composer knocked it off on a single instrument, singing parts that were missing, shouting commentary and clearly enjoying being caught up in the moment. For Inon Barnatan it showed, among other things, ‘how a solo piano version could promise a new dimension of spontaneity and flexibility’. During the pandemic he took up this insight, creating his own transcription.

Now he’s recorded it. I wouldn’t call his performance spontaneous the way his recording of the Cello Sonata with Alisa Weilerstein is (Decca, 11/15). It’s too well poised for that. But it’s surely a captivating poise: dark but not glowering; flexible but not slack (listen to how he bends the opening of the third Dance); virtuosic (his repeated notes are thrilling) but not self-promoting; driving but not hectoring.

Granted, this reduction, sometimes a bit cluttered, offers neither the colour of the orchestral version nor the weight and interplay between partners that makes the two-piano edition so rewarding. Then, too, in Barnatan’s hands some of the lyrical passages are a bit plain-spoken (try the centre of the third movement). Still, he says that ‘in a time of great uncertainty and tragedy … this remarkable piece of music was a source of solace and joy’, and he vividly communicates those qualities.

The Moments musicaux are similarly convincing. True, Barnatan backs away from the extremes: you might want a grimmer No 3 or a more menacing edge to No 4 (try Berman – DG, 3/76). But he compensates for his temperance with his control of long-range dynamics, his dexterous filigree (especially in No 1), his ability to paint superimposed voices with different colours and his elastic phrasing. The release also includes two encores: an unsentimental account of the Vocalise in Barnatan’s own straightforward transcription (none of Earl Wild’s lush elaboration here) and a tender reading of the G sharp minor Prelude. A specialist recording, perhaps, but well worth hearing.