Vladimir Feltsman’s 1999 Bach Partitas first appeared around a decade ago on the Urtext label, coupled with the same composer’s Two- and Three-Part Inventions. Although only the Partitas resurface on this Nimbus release, Feltsman’s inspired performances surely won’t make listeners feel short-changed. In a 1993 masterclass Feltsman encouraged his young pupils to communicate each Partita movement’s dance origins, and that’s exactly what his buoyant tempi for the Courantes and Menuets convey. He also practises what he preached about having fun with repeats by varying the voicings, accents and articulations. Astute ears will also pick up on Feltsman’s transposing certain phrases up or down an octave, albeit to a far more discreet degree than his compulsive register-jumping in the Goldberg Variations.

Feltsman’s imaginative and creative ornaments and embellishments consistently delight and surprise. Notice, for example, the uncommon sense of musing and introspection in the Prelude of the C minor Partita, the rhapsodic briskness of the B flat’s Sarabande or the effectively brusque rolled chords and trills in the D major’s Courante and Aria. You may not get painstaking dynamic gradations or micro-managed contouring of lines in the manner of pianists as disparate as Schiff and Tureck but you won’t find many piano versions of the Bach Partitas where joyous musicality, communicative immediacy and fervent commitment emerge to Feltsman’s consistent degree.