It is a decade since Piers Lane last went to town (10/13) and his latest visit there was completed only in March 2022, having begun at the end of 2015, recorded (over a generous five days in two sessions, I note) at Potton Hall with A-listers Ben Connellan as engineer and Rachel Smith as producer. The selection here focuses on the dance and, as Lane notes in his extensive and genial booklet essay, contains pieces he has mainly performed as encores, mixing the well-known with works especially composed for him: ‘the noble and contemplative alongside the populist and humorous’. It’s a concept that others of a similar temperament – notably his Hyperion stablemates Hough and Hamelin – have revelled in.

Among those of an earlier generation was Shura Cherkassky, whose LP ‘Kaleidoscope’ provided a template. Indeed, Lane opens with a Suite in E minor of which Cherkassky was fond (you can hear this inimitable master of the encore playing it live in 1982 on Ivory Classics 70904). Presented in a different order and ascribed, Lane tells us, to the wrong composer – not Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 87), as had always been thought, but Jean Baptiste Loeillet ‘of London’ (1680-1730) – the Suite’s five short movements are quite as beguiling in Lane’s hands as they were in Cherkassky’s. Almost all the 17 titles here have some career connection to the pianist, personal taste dictating which will appeal more than others. Myra Hess’s selection of 13 Schubert dances and waltzes is another highlight (Lane ran the annual Myra Hess Day from 2006 to 2014), as are his exuberant dispatch of ‘Seguidillas’ (Albéniz) and Black and White Rag, and his poised, graceful handling of Godard’s charming Mazurka and the Schubert-Godowsky Rosamunde ballet music. You can easily imagine the audience’s indulgent end-of-recital smiles over Das Butterbrot (Litolff possibly, probably not Mozart).

Elsewhere, Liszt’s Tarantella, though dashingly executed, is missing the thrilling daredevilry of, say, Sergio Fiorentino (2/63) or Boris Berezovsky (live in 2009 – Mirare, 5/10); and Susan Tomes on her wonderful Billy Mayerl album ‘Loose Elbows’ (2/90) keeps a firmer rhythmic grip on Railroad Rhythm. For me, TK Murray’s Danse barbaro (2005) and even Szymanowski’s two Mazurkas sit uncomfortably in this sweet shop. None of which is sufficient reason to dissuade me from commending this return visit with enthusiasm.