So it takes an artist of real breadth of expression to bring across each work with conviction. Eldar Nebolsin is a big pianist in every sense, Russian-born and trained, and winner of the inaugural Sviatoslav Richter Piano Competition in 2005. He is undaunted by the immense demands of the Wanderer in a performance of considerable power that revels in the granitic chordal writing and culminates in a fugue of almost bludgeoning power.

Turn to Richter in this work – taking a visceral live version, complete with its share of wrong notes – and you find the chordal writing imbued with an even more violent momentum but also a compensatory melting quality in the more inward passages. It’s a performance of extremes but ultimately it has more humanity than Nebolsin’s. For a more Classical approach, try Brendel (Philips – nla), airier in texture and with a virtuoso fugue that never becomes oppressive. Nebolsin’s over-resonant acoustic does him few favours. But more than that, I’m unconvinced that he is a natural Schubertian. Sample the slightly faster Christian Zacharias in the cantabile slow movement of D537 and you find a sonorous warmth that is lacking in the Naxos set. Nebolsin is better suited to the more driven moments but it’s all a little unsmiling. Ultimately it’s akin to looking at a black-and-white photo of a Cézanne still life. The contours are strongly defined but at the cost of the endlessly fascinating detail.