Michelangeli remains an ultimate musical enigma. One minute stiff and unyielding – a veritable Prussian officer of the keyboard (much of the Schumann Concerto) – the next, sensitive and confiding with, surprisingly, a playful, near-improvisatory charm (the Grieg Concerto). At his greatest in discs of Rachmaninov’s Fourth and the Ravel G major Concertos, and on Testament’s release of a 1957 Royal Festival Hall recital (12/96), his playing takes on a character which, however perverse, leaves a towering and indelible impression.

In Vol 3 of his early recordings, the Schumann Concerto is as disappointing as the Grieg is subtle and mercurial, a classic illustration of the paradox at the heart of this great pianist. The Schumann quickly settles into a froideur and self-consciousness that put paid to what is arguably the most endearing and romantic of all piano concertos. An undignified sprint at the end of the opening Allegro is oddly out of keeping with the inflexible vice-like grip elsewhere; and if there is a higher degree of engagement in the finale, it comes too late to erase those leaden first and second movements. But with the Grieg you enter another world, one where lyricism and piquancy complement flashes of a unique command in the cadenza and an open-hearted affection in the central section of the finale. Encores by Grieg and Debussy fill out a bewildering disc and the recordings, dating from 1939 48, despite Ward Marston’s best efforts show their age.