You will have to go a long way to hear more masterly, prize-winning performances than these, a more immaculate white-tie-and-tails brio and pianism. Winner of the 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Jon Nakamatsu never distorts a line or phrase for obvious gain or effect. Everything is seen within a flawless, crystalline musical perspective, his tone is elegant and refined in every part of the dynamic spectrum, his phrasing and rubato stylishly fluent and tapered, and if he has power in abundance nothing is forced or exaggerated.

Hear him in the late Impromptu, where Liszt’s innocent opening spirals to a climax of painful intensity, or in the Schumann-Liszt Frühlingsnacht where the notes flow from his fingers with an ease and precision that will make lesser pianists weep with envy. Everything is honed and polished to perfection, geared to seduce even the most jaded competition juror. And yet – and how carping this will seem, given such enviable and immaculate virtues – I wonder if I am alone in wishing for playing of greater personal involvement, even if it leads to an occasional hair out of place.

Hardly the sort of pianist to wear his heart on his sleeve, Nakamatsu distances himself from Liszt’s most heated emotions, leaving one occasionally wishing for a greater touch of diablerie, of devil-may-care mischief-making in the Dante Sonata and the first Mephisto Waltz. It was, after all, Liszt himself who described the latter as music “stuffed full of seasoning…and sprinkled with belladonna”. Harmonia Mundi captures Nakamatsu’s immense dynamic range from pulverising fortissimo octaves to a whispered pianissimo. As piano-playing this enterprisingly chosen recital is the stuff of dreams.