Polish piano music, for most of us, begins with Chopin (followed later by Paderewski and Szymanowski). The myriad other composers from that country who wrote for the instrument immediately before and after him only underline his towering genius. Two of these three valuable discs from the Polish pianist Maria Gabrys´-Heyke (b1979) illustrate that. That said, Chopin is often viewed as some miraculous fully formed isolated phenomenon with no antecedents, whereas we know there were many contemporaries whose music helped to fashion his unique voice. The first disc gives some examples.

By far the most important was Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), extraordinary not just as one of the first professional touring piano virtuosos but doing so as a woman. She herself stands head and shoulders above a trio of other roughly contemporary Polish female composers – ‘roughly’ because their exact birth and death dates are unknown. Miss Andrychowicz (even her first name is uncertain), Emilia Potocka and Józefina Wejnert were all students of Jósef Elsner, best known as the teacher of the young Chopin. There is, to be frank, little to detain us musically. The exceptions are Szymanowska’s beguiling Nocturne in B flat (c1831, and said to be an influence on Chopin), with which Gabrys´-Heyke begins, and her 1819 Nocturne Le murmure. It is hard to discern any individuality or memorable ideas among the workaday, derivative polonaises and waltzes that make up the programme. They are played on a pleasing 1830 piano from the Warsaw firm of Krall & Seidler.

The second disc – shortest and most consistently enjoyable of the three – is played on an Érard piano from 1848‑49. It sounds very well in the Palace in Chrzęsne (east-central Poland). It features a dozen works by Adolphe Gutmann (1819‑82), Chopin’s ‘favourite student’ and friend, a mixture of solos and works for four hands (Dmitry Ablogin, Russian, b1989, proves a suitably forthright partner for Gabrys´-Heyke). As the booklet admits, ‘Gutmann’s pieces are not outstanding or innovative, but they perfectly matched the taste of the then society, which is why they enjoyed such a great popularity in the 19th century’. Many of them put me in mind of Gottschalk – melodic, brilliant, sentimental and effective salon music – but at least one number rises above the predictable and superficial, and that is the Nocturne in A, Op 13 No 1. Very lovely. Gabrys´-Heyke plays it beautifully. There should always be room for Gutmann and his ilk: we are not bound to listen only to masterpieces.

The third disc takes us on a further generation to the works of Karol Mikuli (1821‑97), best known as a student of Chopin and important editor of his works, and Aleksander Michałowski (1851-1938), another Chopin devotee and teacher of Wanda Landowska, Vladimir Sofronitsky and Mischa Levitzki. For these 13 works (10 of them are premiere recordings), Gabrys´-Heyke turns to a fuller-toned 1894 Broadwood. Here, at last, is some music of real substance. The Ballade, Op 21, Scherzino, Op 9 No 5, and Prélude et Presto agitato (Mikuli’s Op 1) may rely on Chopin for their titles and some recognisable keyboard figurations but these are effective recital pieces which Gabrys´-Heyke brings off with a good deal of panache and charm. The eight works by Michałowski, too, are well worth exploring, presenting a rather different side of the composer to the flashy virtuoso transcriptions one occasionally encounters on disc (Hamelin and Ullén inter alia). Try the soulful Prelude in B flat minor, Op 9 (a ravishing performance), melancholic Ballade, Op 30 (at 9'44" the longest work on the album) and, for collectors of music for the left hand alone, the Prelude in A flat, Op 33 No 5. Gabrys´-Heyke finishes with the Impromptu in D flat, Op 21, another discovery that merits its first recording. I suspect there will be a number of pianists following in her train.