Many years ago I noted an element of caution in Imogen Cooper’s playing. Her way with Debussy’s ‘Poissons d’or’ in particular made it seem as if those incomparable golden fishes were eyeing possible fishermen. Today we can reflect on the way this pianist’s artistry has blossomed and evolved into a greater sense of imaginative freedom, finding a truer balance of sense and sensibility. Here, in Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op 12, she relishes the haunting ebb and flow of ‘Des Abends’ and finds her way to the very heart of the composer in the delectably pointed romantic polyphony in the central section of ‘In der Nacht’. You may miss the more magical fleetness of Perahia or Argerich (her studio rather than helter-skelter live performance) in ‘Traumes Wirren’ but even here her steadiness provides an always musicianly alternative to speed or hysteria.

Again, in Kreisleriana you will hardly locate the transcendental pianistic sheen cast over its pages by Géza Anda or the volatility of Horowitz (most notably in the gnomic final pages) but you remain grateful for the way Cooper tempers Schumann’s hallucinatory art with her own more basic and fundamental musicianship. Sandwiched in between these two masterpieces, she reminds you of Brahms’s veneration for the Schumanns, giving us the D minor Theme and Variations from the First String Sextet with all their richness and fullness made glowingly intact. Cooper is finely recorded and Nicholas Marston’s detailed notes are an added bonus.