Since his silver medal at the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition, the American pianist George Li, who turns 29 this summer, has been busy. He completed the Harvard University/New England Conservatory dual degree programme with a bachelor’s in English Literature and a master’s in Music in 2019 and, three years later, received the Artist Diploma at NEC. He has toured worldwide, appearing with top conductors and orchestras, as well as forging chamber music partnerships with the likes of the Dover Quartet and violinist Stella Chen. And he has recorded. First came a mixed recital of Haydn, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov, recorded at St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre (10/17). Then Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the London Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko, along with selections from both Italian years of Liszt’s Années plus the Don Juan Fantasy (1/20). Now, on his third Warner Classics release, Li offers us Stravinsky’s transcriptions for Rubinstein from Petrushka, Ravel’s Waltzes and a deep dive into Schumann.

The ubiquitous Arabeske comes off as far from threadbare, emerging in Li’s hands with disarming freshness and naivety. It is only deep into Davidsbündlertänze, however, that the true extent of Li’s gifts as a Schumann player becomes evident. Each phrase is beautifully balanced, its directional goal never in doubt. Schumann’s restless, even mercurial imagination is vividly evoked. But above all, it is Li’s uncannily adroit capture of Schumann’s characterisations, be they passionate (No 4, Ungeduldig), searching (No 5, Einfach), pursuing (No 8, Frisch), jauntily rambunctious (No 13, Wild und lustig), comical (No 12, Mit Humor) or ineffably sad (No 2, Innig). This Davidsbündlertänze whets my appetite for a future Schumann Fantasie from Li.

Moreover, his handling of Ravel is no less sophisticated. The exuberance of the first waltz melting into the hushed intimacy of the second embodies the essence of Li’s approach to the Valses nobles et sentimentales. I can’t think of another pianist who portrays Ravel’s aesthetic with greater relish or sympathy. The subtlest rhythmic impulses are given their due, even as the colour and dynamic spectra seem almost incalculably wide.

Finally, we are transported to centre stage in the world of Fokine, Benois, Nijinsky and Diaghilev. That these are dances not for the home or the ballroom but for the theatre is a distinction that Li makes clear in his performance. Bursting with energy and rhythmic vitality, he brings to this realisation a sort of secco clarity particularly suitable to Stravinsky. One easily imagines a stage filled with dancers enacting all the bustle of the Shrovetide carnival in early 19th-century St Petersburg, but only after one has recovered from the astonishment of such dazzling pianism. Don’t miss this.