Anyone who thinks of Paderewski’s music as a benign offshoot from his sensational career as a pianist will be startled by his Piano Sonata, music of epic, virtuoso ambition. Elsewhere, in calmer waters, Opp. 12 and 16 conjure a picture of Paderewski ‘at home’, stepping out of the limelight and improvising his way through one courtly and old-fashioned miniature after another; whiling away the evening hours, oblivious to his glamorous image as both statesman and pianist. True, such music slips easily from convention to banality, but the heart-easing “Nocturne” and sparkling Variations from Op. 16 (superlatively recorded by Stephen Hough and Earl Wild respectively) are delightful exceptions and Adam Wodnicki, while far less stylistically or technically assured than either of those artists, declares his affection for his compatriot in every bar. He hurls himself at the Sonata’s Sturm und Drang rhetoric with impressive assurance, and although the recorded sound is sometimes tubby and the claims of the accompanying essay exaggerated (it is surely a mistake to equate Paderewski’s picture postcard response to the Tatra area of Poland with Szymanowski’s innovative and complex attitude) this is a valuable and instructive issue.'