John Ogdon considered composing an unfocused pastime and hobby in relation to his busy concert career but that didn’t stop him from churning out nearly 200 works in many genres. Few were published or performed during his lifetime and the majority of scores remain in manuscript, although Ogdon did record several of his works commercially.

Not surprisingly, Ogdon’s piano-writing is thoroughly idiomatic and physically logical for the average hand. But the music itself sometimes lacks point. Take the previously unrecorded Ballade, for example. It begins with slow, carefully considered chords that create a mood of rapt concentration. It suddenly breaks out into busy Sorabji-esque note-spinning, followed by slow chords interrupted by pointillist outbursts. Sparse counterpoint transpires leisurely and uneventfully, while the aforementioned note-spinning returns and recedes in time for a slow chordal finish.

The First Sonata’s outer movements suggest the nervous energy and playful asymmetry of Michael Tippett’s piano-writing but minus the older master’s harmonic invention or contrapuntal discipline. Ogdon’s large-scale aspirations seem best realised in the Variations and Fugue, because the work’s very form enables – indeed, forces – Ogdon to focus and contextualise his myriad stylistic affinities (Busoni and Sorabji dominate) towards a cumulatively satisfying whole. Some listeners, however, may find Ogdon’s quirks easier to digest in smaller doses in the form of his Six Kaleidoscopes. In the ‘Barcarolle’, Ogdon’s avoidance of the pedal creates a tipsy rather than lulling effect, while the ‘Scherzo brillante’ might be described as a two-minute Prokofiev/Malcolm Arnold/Charles Ives mash-up.

The young pianist Tyler Hay has brilliantly mastered and assimilated these often elusive scores, even to the point where I heretically prefer his interpretations to Ogdon’s. For example, the Sonata benefits from Hay’s smoother and steadier control in the first-movement exposition and shapelier slow-movement trills. And while Ogdon’s exciting but slapdash live 1979 archival recording of the Variations and Fugue remains a valuable document, Hay’s studio traversal homes in on the daunting details without sacrificing the bigger picture. Furthermore, Hay’s booklet notes prove him to be every inch as intelligent and insightful away from the keyboard.