Given the option to pair one Scriabin and one Rachmaninov sonata, most young pianists would choose the latter’s popular Second over his more prolix First, or favour Scriabin’s Second, Fourth or Fifth over the younger, less fully formed composer’s four-movement First. By programming both first sonatas together for his debut solo recording, Zixiang Wang seems intent on standing out from the pack.

Wang’s Scriabin fares best in his fluently paced second movement, where he carefully builds up to the central climax, along with a finale whose dour Funeral March conveys appropriate bleakness and ringing momentum. The third-movement Presto comes off a mite square when heard alongside lither and nimbler competitors such as the obscure yet riveting Wojciech Kocyan (Dux, 3/08). Likewise, Wang’s first movement doesn’t tap into the music’s con fuoco nature with the impassioned, long-lined fervency of Vladimir Ashkenazy’s recording.

Wang’s sonority and overall energy open up and gather steam as the Rachmaninov sonata’s long outer movements unfold, even though Nikolai Lugansky’s recording (Naïve, 12/12) boasts more orchestral sweep and dynamic contrast, not to mention the still unrivalled intensity of Alexis Weissenberg’s gaunt, steel-edged recording (DG, 4/90). For all Wang’s sensitive lyrical shaping in the slow movement, he tends to flatten out the texture by presenting the spun-out melodies and their surrounding filigree in equal perspective. Sample Sergio Fiorentino’s three-dimensional wizardry in this movement (Piano Classics, 6/12) and you enter another world. Special mention should be made of Wang’s extensive and well-researched annotations.