Laments 1-4, triste, secreto are Mompou’s descriptions of several pieces from his Impresiones intimas (again, a resonant and revealing title), telling you what is at the heart of his unique and recondite idiom, a voice sustained over many years, ignoring an exterior world of rapid change. And it is this central quality that is so movingly and faithfully captured by Clélia Iruzun in the first of a projected series of discs of Mompou’s music. Having recorded a wide range of material centring on South America, this Brazilian pianist now turns to music to which she is faultlessly attuned. Wherever you turn you will find an unfailing lucidity and affection. Nothing is forced or exaggerated. Never for a moment do you hear the smart metropolitan aplomb of an over-seasoned concert pianist. It is as if she is sharing a special love with a small circle of intimate friends.

How memorably she understands the way so much of the music retreats from its short-lived gaiety into confidentiality. Her way with Chopin’s A major Prelude (the launch of the Chopin Variations) is sufficiently poised to make you long to hear her in the other 23 Preludes, and in Var 8 (the expressive core of the work) and in a later ghostly memory of Chopin’s Fantaisie-impromptu, her poetic empathy is total. To crown it all, Iruzun’s always apt and beautiful sonority is ideally captured by Somm. A memorable issue.