The grim cloak of war informs all of the music on this disc to varying degrees, as discussed in vivid and occasionally harrowing detail in Robert Matthew-Walker’s excellent booklet notes. More importantly, however, pianist Maria Narodytska proves herself a compelling interpreter and gifted composer.

In Szymanowski’s Masques, she balances the amorphous textural strands of the opening ‘Shéhérazade’ movement with an astute sense of what belongs in the foreground and background. She’s less literal and more playful than Krystian Zimerman in ‘Tantris the Buffoon’ (DG, 11/22), although I prefer Zimerman’s slightly slower yet more meticulously detailed phrasing of ‘Don Juan’s Serenade’. Her Chopin A major Polonaise, Op 40 No 1, doesn’t quite reach Rubinstein’s ardent swagger, but note her dynamic shifts on repetitions and the D major episode’s intense build-up. Her epically brooding C minor Polonaise, Op 40 No 2 (with all repeats intact), conveys gnawing harmonic tension and a sound world that brings the phrase ‘dignified desolation’ to mind.

Narodytska’s original composition After begins with a jagged motif made up of two notes (G and B). Each repetition is seasoned with dissonant jabs, and as the motif evolves and thickens into chords, the music’s pent-up energy gradually opens up with notes flying all over the place, leading into a shattering climax that slowly decompresses, bringing the listener to the work’s starting point. It’s a serious and powerful piece, and I hope that Narodytska’s authoritative performance will inspire other pianists to take it up.

Up until now I’ve only known the Ukrainian composer Artem Liakhovych as an exceptional pianist. A selection of his 24 War Notebook Postludes composed in response to the war and during the evacuation in Uman may well be stylistic pastiches, yet the stylistic allusions are consistently creative and surprising. For example, No 4 is a wacky waltz/mazurka amalgam that makes sardonic use of register extremes in which Narodytska particularly revels.

In Shostakovich’s Second Sonata, Narodytska’s opening Allegretto movement contrasts with Orion Weiss’s recent recording (First Hand, 1/23) for her liberal use of the pedal and her frequently emphatic accents that arguably undercut the composer’s semplice directive, as opposed to Weiss’s steady and slightly dry deliberation. The latter pianist’s transparency and reserve in the Largo differs from Narodytska’s weightier interpretation; one could say that she favours mass over Weiss’s line. If the seamless continuity in Weiss’s reading of the long and remarkable third-movement variations is analogous to symphonic continuity, Narodytska’s episodic approach and diverse characterisations from one variation to the next is decidedly operatic; perhaps Emil Gilels’s classic RCA studio recording (4/73) splits the difference. In all, a strong, substantial, thoughtfully sequenced and well-engineered release, well worth investigating.