A small UK label with a recording made in November 2016 and December 2017 at the VS Popov Academy of Choral Art, Moscow, by a prize winner at several international competitions and professor at London’s Blackheath Conservatoire. So how does Evgeny Samoyloff acquit himself in this attractive programme? The answer is: very well indeed. All-Mussorgsky piano albums are few and far between and, so far as I know, apart from Nikolaus Lahusen on Celestial Harmonies this is the only one currently available that offers Night on the Bare Mountain (arr Konstantin Chernov), Pictures at an Exhibition and a selection of miniatures.

Samoyloff, who cut his teeth in the Special Music School of Novosibirsk, may not always be the most tonally alluring pianist, nor the best recorded, but for vivid characterisation and bold, muscular gestures, he is right on the money in the transcription, even more malevolent than Boris Berezovsky and making the more refined virtuosity of Simon Trpčeski sound as if the latter is playing a piano étude rather than a dramatic tone poem. After that comes a convincing sequence of the pianist’s own devising in which he seeks to complement Mussorgsky’s two unfinished suites (Children’s Games and Memories of Childhood) with five other miniatures to create a charming new suite of eight pieces. Samoyloff leaves you wondering why some of these, written between 1859 and 1880, are not better known, illustrating as they do Mussorgsky’s musical development, his penchant for quirky harmonies, and capricious, unexpected narrative twists and turns.

Finally Pictures, in which Samoyloff’s assertive pianism again serves him well, even if the opening salvos of ‘Gnomus’ are not quite as unnerving as Horowitz’s. In the main, he adheres to Rimsky’s edition but is not above not above substituting bass octaves with left-hand trills in the second-half of ‘Gnomus’ (most effective, and anticipating the trills in the succeeding section), ignoring the repeat in ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle’, arpeggiating the opening chords of ‘The Great Gate’, and other small details. Samoyloff is not all barnstorming bluster, though, and produces a truly lovely tone (con delicatezza, as requested) in ‘Promenade 2’ and ‘The Old Castle’. All in all, here is a pianist with personality who has something individual to say about this music. That said, for a recording with the Bare Mountain transcription and Pictures, I shall not be exchanging the newcomer for the performances by Alessio Bax, winner of the 2000 Leeds Competition.