Given his extraordinary gifts, the Polish pianist Rafał Blechacz (now 37 years old) manages to keep an extraordinarily low profile. Since 2005, when he achieved the unique distinction of winning all five available first prizes at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, he has so far recorded just eight albums. His disc of Chopin’s Polonaises (12/13) went straight into my collection of favourites alongside Rubinstein (1934 35 – Naxos, 8/36) and Brailowsky (Sony, 6/62): they were that good.

This new album will join them. Blechacz is simply a great Chopin player. You might disagree about some of his choices (dynamics, phrasing, etc) but what he gives you is his compatriot’s music in robust, intense and heartfelt performances that engage you as a great actor might in some dramatic monologue. The B flat minor Second Sonata, especially, after a magisterial opening announcement, unfolds as a tragic tale in which the famous Funeral March is its inevitable outcome (the way Blechacz transitions from the end of the Scherzo to this movement is quite masterly). The first-movement repeat from the doppio movimento bar is as convincing as I have ever heard it. The swirling triplets of the finale, while by no means the most fleet on disc, are among the most musically expressed.

Blechacz follows this with the lovely F sharp minor Nocturne, Op 48 No 2, a piece he often combines with the Sonata No 2 in concert. Then comes the B minor Third Sonata, another red-blooded, dramatic reading offset by his beautiful handling of the opening Allegro maestoso’s bel canto second subject. The Scherzo is spectacular in its speed and crisp articulation, the great Largo movement reminding us of the classical roots of this Romantic masterpiece. If I have any criticism, it is a wish for greater contrapuntal definition in the pages after the first-movement repeat, a puzzle over the finale’s main theme where Blechacz decides to make slight tenutos on the down-beats of the fourth and eight bars et seq, and a regret that the left hand is rather obscured under the last movement’s blistering semiquaver runs. The recital ends with the Barcarolle, a final reading achieved, like all the others on this outstanding recording, only by long association and deep affection.