Listening to Liszt’s musical description of his travels through Switzerland and Italy affords the same kind of pleasure as reading a prose journal. It’s been many years since I “read it” all at a single sitting, and the first time in an edition with vivid hand-coloured mezzotints. Daniel Grimwood, fast making a name for himself as an original and discriminating musician, has chosen to play the cycle on an Érard piano of 1851, an instrument by Liszt’s favourite maker built at around the same time as he was radically revising the 16 earlier works that would make up the first two volumes of Années de pèlerinage (the third was written between 1867 and 1877).

Tuned to the (unequal) Bach-Lehman temperament (a'=440), the Érard produces the sound Liszt would have heard when composing and playing these works. “Straight stringing,” explains Grimwood, “causes a separation of register which the modern piano lacks…the lighter action means that playing at speed is far easier. The wealth of overtones makes for a more vibrant and sweeter tone.” But this would be just another interesting period-instrument recording were it not for the performances. These are out of the top drawer, for Grimwood is not merely a keyboard colourist (Au bord d’une source, for instance, and the two Thrénodies from Book 3 emerge as early examples of Impressionism, enhanced by the Érard’s harp-like treble register in quieter passages); he throws himself with abandon into the bravura writing of Vallée d’Obermann and the Dante Sonata, and turns in a delightfully perky Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa. It’s an enthralling journey that throws new light on these poetic ideals of the Romantic era and, with hardly a pause between each item, leaves the listener, as it would any traveller on the Grand Tour, awed by the wonders of nature, the spectacular scenery and the glories of Italian culture.