Though Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne may not immediately appear stylistically empathetic artists, let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. In this repertoire they are as one, touch and tone indistinguishable from one another, playing with a delicious fluency and obvious affection. They open with the Allegro in A minor in a finely graded and characterised reading that puts Jandó and Prunyi (Naxos, 12/92), for example, in the shade. To conclude, there is the great F minor Fantasie in which the incomparable opening is lent a hint of optimism, even jauntiness, before the subsequent journey to a pathetic conclusion. This is a reading that compares favourably with the benchmark recording by Lupu and Perahia (Sony, 3/86^R).

My one complaint is that the central part of this generous programme is a sequence in similar tempi and dynamics, pace the plaintive theme of the Andantino varié, a work I have never heard played more disarmingly than here. There is rather too much evenly paced quaver passagework at mezzo-forte (even in the little E minor Fugue) for rather too long a stretch. But no – by any standards – this is a Schubert disc to return to and live with.