This four-CD reissue of Nadia Reisenberg’s Chopin, recorded for Westminster between 1947 and 1957, also includes a live and fearless performance of the B minor Sonata (“steam and all”, according to Reisenberg’s son Robert Sherman in his warmly appreciative notes), taken live from Carnegie Hall. Subtitled “A Chopin Treasury”, these records are treasure indeed, an Aladdin’s cave of performances of such breathtaking pianistic finesse that they are able to achieve an expressive and imaginative freedom known to very few pianists. Reisenberg can be wistful and confiding, her playing most subtly coloured and nuanced in the Nocturnes, the fruit of a deep and abiding affection. Even the finest singer would envy her heart-easing warmth and flexibility in Op 32 No 2 in A flat, and in the Berceuse she gives new, iridescent meaning to James Huneker’s loving reference to “a rain of silvery fire”. The Allegro de concert (Chopin’s projected Third Concerto) holds no terrors for such a flawlessly equipped pianist and if she is surprisingly robust in the Barcarolle she is less impulsive and tempest-tossed than Argerich (one of her most heated and provocative readings). Then there are the complete Mazurkas (56 from Reisenberg), Chopin’s most elusive challenge and one often avoided by all but the most seasoned and intrepid Chopin specialists. Once more, Reisenberg is responsive to virtually every facet of these works, in music proudly strutting or sunk in deep-dyed Slavic melancholy. Hear her in Op 17 No 4 in A minor or try the opening of Op 24 No 4 in B flat minor where her rubato is at once natural and personal, with its subtle quickening and relaxing of the pulse. Here she strikes gold, as she does too in the great B minor Sonata, flinging all inhibition to the wind and exiting from the stage in a blaze of virtuoso glory.

Finally, although nothing will separate me from Rubinstein’s early records of the Nocturnes and Mazurkas (reissued on Naxos, 6/01), I feel sure that he would have been among the first to salute Nadia Reisenberg’s achievement. Significantly, he was among her first musical loves. This invaluable, finely remastered album is accompanied by splendid photographs of the pianist with her family and with such colleagues as Benny Goodman, Piatigorsky, Heifetz, Enescu and Richard Tucker.