Although Brahms’s Op 118 Piano Pieces hardly lack for world-class recordings, Robert Henry’s generous and big-boned yet lyrically informed pianism enlivens these well-worn works. The first two and final pieces abound with impassioned, long-lined rhetoric and dynamic contrast while Henry honours No 3’s energico directive yet still takes great care over clarifying the textural strands. More than many pianists, Henry allows No 4’s right-hand lines to soar independently from the busy accompanying triplets, and No 5 grows more flexible as it progresses, following a slightly foursquare start. Henry precedes Op 118 with Eduard Lassen’s Löse Himmel, meine Seele as ravishingly retooled by Franz Liszt, and brings far more urgency and sweep to the cascading climaxes than Leslie Howard and Valerie Tryon do in their respective recordings.

The Bohemian composer and pianist Franz Bendel was a short-lived contemporary of Brahms, and a rather workman talent, judging from this premiere recording of his Op 141 fantasy on the famous Cradle Song. The piece goes on too long for what it has to say, yet Henry’s multi-layered interpretation makes the music’s best possible case. By contrast, Brahms’s minute-and-a-half, posthumously published A minor Albumblatt is a minor masterpiece, and here possibly receives its finest recorded performance.

I’m less enamoured by Henry’s stiff execution of the staccato chords in Schubert’s C minor Impromptu, although he imbues the E flat Impromptu’s pearly passagework and tumultuous middle section with pointed caprice and captivating spontaneity. Although Henry rightly takes the G flat Imprompu at an alla breve tempo, his expansive cantabile and effortless textural control nevertheless manage to convey expansive breadth. Henry’s supple handling of the Fourth Impromptu’s rotary patterns and singing left-hand work also impresses; my only quibble concerns his slight ritards at cadential points, which tend to become predictable as the music unfolds. The depth and range of Henry’s tone is reflected in the recorded ambience’s concert-hall realism. In short, a rewarding follow-up to this pianist’s stimulating 2010 ‘Twelve Nocturnes and a Waltz’ release