From the Goldenweiser and Bashkirov stable, and a rare bird in the concert hall, Nelly Akopian-Tamarina carries the kind of aura that makes dispassionate assessment tricky. Listening objectively to some of her recordings can stretch sympathy to breaking point. Are her inflections uniquely poetic or are they random, overdone and ultimately predictable? Is her fallibility in the most demanding repertoire an obstacle? In a way I wish it had not been her Schumann Fantasy (Brilliant Classics) that was my first encounter with her playing, because it didn’t encourage me to explore further. Whereas if it had been her Chopin and Janáček (from a March 2009 Wigmore Hall recital) I think I would have got the point immediately and been inclined to forgive her everything.

It’s a long time since I’ve heard Chopin mazurkas made so engrossing that my mind never wandered. Partly this is a matter of not knowing where Akopian-Tamarina’s poetic instincts are going to take her next. Equally, though, it’s the impression of a vulnerable selflessness, which cannot be faked and which goes straight to the heart of the music. I had completely forgotten, for instance, what an extraordinary piece the B flat Mazurka from Op 17 is. Here Akopian-Tamarina takes such an improvisatory approach to the central section that I briefly wondered whether she had actually got lost (she hadn’t, of course). Among other liberties are the reversal of dynamics and the omission of repeats. But so what?

Is her rubato more Tchaikovskian than Chopinesque? I can imagine the case being argued, and her instincts are certainly for the agogic, with the whole rhythmic texture pushing and pulling in rapid alternation, rather than the contrametric, with the right hand varied against a steady pulse in the left. Chopin himself reportedly espoused the latter (though has anyone ever really taken him at his word?). In its own terms Akopian-Tamarina’s approach is – to me at least – far more seductive than repulsive. Her inflections are consistently daring and yet always part and parcel of a distinctive poetic vision.

Akopian-Tamarina takes the title of Janáček’s In the Mists as literally as a pianist can, surrounding the first piece in more vaporous pedal than (I suspect) any previous recording has ever done. Once past the initial raising of the eyebrows, I felt transported as never before to the magical forests of The Cunning Little Vixen and to the pantheistic heart of Janáček’s vision. So much love radiates from this playing that I felt well and truly enchanted and disarmed.

Two F minor encores from a January 2008 Wigmore Hall appearance complete the disc. A sceptic might say they confirm that Akopian-Tamarina’s default mode of expression is weeping-into-the-vodka-glass Russian nostalgia. Against that, Medtner’s narrante a piacere and Liadov’s rubato and con amarezza (with bitterness) markings give her full licence for her unique brand of quiet rapture.