I remember first hearing Claire Huangci’s blazing Paderewski Concerto (Berlin Classics) and being knocked out by her dexterity as she nimbly switched gears to draw out the brief waft of late-night melancholy towards the start of the first movement’s cadenza. The same responsiveness to differences in mood and colour characterises her first solo recital on her new label, Alpha Classics. The paradoxically edgy concentration of the Barber Fugue, the honeyed sultriness of Earl Wild’s take on Gershwin’s ‘Lady be good’, the naive Roaring Twenties zest of Rhapsody in Blue, the crushing desolation of the Funeral March in the Beach: all register vividly.

Such alertness to changing landscapes would on its own make this release stand out, but its effect is amplified by Huangci’s technical panache. Her recital centres on repertoire associated with Vladimir Horowitz (the Barber) and Earl Wild (everything but the Beach). As is evident from her clarity of rhythm and articulation in the Barber’s second movement, though, she holds her own against the fabled digital control of her predecessors.

Want more? Some early publicity for this disc promised the inclusion of Corigliano’s Etude Fantasy; the substitution of the under-appreciated Beach (which Huangci calls ‘the heart and soul of the album’) adds considerably to the programme’s depth. Based on four Balkan tunes, it starts with a few conventional variations on a single theme. But it soon wanders in unexpected directions, adding new themes and moving through an elaborate pastiche of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies on to the Funeral March and a stormy Quasi fantasia before its eloquent end. Huangci points to a theme Beach identified as ‘a Macedonian appeal for help’, and while there’s dispute about its actual history, the pianist is right that it ‘lends deep poignancy, and ominously heavy relevance in our world today’.

Is the rubato at the beginning of Rhapsody in Blue a bit fussy? Are there spots where she downplays pianissimos? Are there more effective orderings for the Wild Études? Minor quibbles. Back in 2015, reviewing Huangci’s Scarlatti set on Berlin Classics, Jed Distler called her an ‘artist poised for greatness’ (9/15). Her recordings since then have proved that she’s no longer merely ‘poised’ – but none, in my experience, reveals the range and brilliance of her artistry as fully as this one does.