The Royal Academy of Music in London celebrated its bicentenary last year. Among the initiatives to mark this milestone was the award of five Bicentenary Scholarships, the recipient of one of these being the 22-year-old Dutch pianist Aidan Mikdad, who graduated from the Amsterdam Conservatory in June 2021. One of the scholarship’s benefits is the opportunity to record (in the Academy’s Angela Burgess Recital Hall) a digital-only recital.

It’s an interesting programme, though some might raise an eyebrow at the somewhat tenuous connection between the two composers as stated by the pianist, beyond their both ‘expand[ing] the possibilities of sound and fiery colour on the piano’. Be that as it may, Mikdad, already a seasoned competition entrant, gives fine accounts of all three works here, beginning with Scriabin’s Sonata-Fantasy, Op 19, with the finale taken at a fearless presto. Hamelin (Hyperion, 6/96) differentiates the opposing right-hand triplets and left-hand octaves with greater clarity but no less passion and tonal depth than Mikdad. The two pieces for the left hand alone also fare well, though I wonder if the opening of the Nocturne might have benefited from a further take to be thoroughly convincing.

‘Ondine’ is wonderfully well articulated even if, as yet, it misses that undefinable other-worldly atmosphere that Argerich and the young Pogorelich (both DG, 8/75, 6/83) bring to it. Best of all is ‘Le gibet’, taken at a judiciously measured pace, allowing those relentless B flats/A sharps to conjure as powerfully as anyone the image of some hideous body relentlessly swinging gently back and forth as the distant bell tolls. No doubt about Mikdad’s impressive technical command in ‘Scarbo’, a reading that would impress any competition jury but might be marked down for giving too much too soon (there’s no fff marking until the penultimate page!), presented here as a thrilling virtuoso piece – which of course it is – without yet also giving us the malignant, nightmarish fiend of Bertrand’s poem.

Nevertheless, this calling card will do very well and Aidan Mikdad’s name will be filed under ‘One to Watch’.