The latest volume of Nikolai Lugansky’s Rachmaninov cycle offers a coupling of early and late works, ranging widely through the florid intricacies of the Chopin Variations to the greater austerity of the Corelli and Paganini-derived pieces. However, his performances are strangely and frustratingly mixed: the Paganini Rhapsody and Corelli Variations are masterly but detached, while his Chopin Variations (based on the dark, processional C minor Prelude) is a glorious example of Russian romantic virtuosity. In Lugansky’s hands even the quickly aborted fugue of Variation 12 sounds convincing.

What warmth and glow in Variation 6, what dazzling assurance in Variations 7-8. The urgently pulsing undertow to Variation 4 is relished to the full and there is superb poise in Variations 13-14. Variation 21, as seductive and insinuating as anything in Rachmaninov, is given with a rare sense of its finesse and magically chiming counter-melody and the final burst of split-chord pianistic thunder is hurled at you in a manner that could make lesser mortals weep with envy.

In the later works, Lugansky sounds his perhaps more familiar self, expert but remote, disdaining to wear his heart on his sleeve, even in those variations that cry out for greater poetic commitment (Variation 18 in the Paganini Rhapsody). The treacherous skips of Variation 14 (Moiseiwitsch mischievously advised the nervous composer to drink a glass of Benedictine before playing the Rhapsody) are fearlessly negotiated but where is the fantasy and freedom that marked the Chopin Variations? He remains a formidable but puzzling pianist. Sakari Oramo and the Birmingham orchestra are expert partners and Warner’s fine sound is excellently balanced.