This, surprisingly, is John Lill’s first recording of any of Schumann’s solo piano works. I wish I could give him the generous 60th birthday present he deserves by recommending wholeheartedly his latest endeavour, but the fact is that these are fine, well-prepared performances that fall short of the greatest.

What distinguishes Lill’s playing is his scrupulous attention to the smallest notational detail (though not always dynamics and tempi). Admirable as this is, it also tends to inform the delivery with a certain literalness that others transcend, epitomised in the opening page of the great Fantasie. Compare Lill with the frankly more imaginative responses of Horowitz, Hamelin, Fiorentino and Katchen. The March is adroitly handled and strongly characterised by Lill, but I do think he over-eggs the conception of an ever slower tempo for the course of the finale. Richter takes the same view but is more persuasive and over two minutes faster.

Throughout, the upper half of the piano, when played above forte becomes insistently hard toned, never more so than in that boringly repetitive opening theme of ‘The Carnival Jest’ and in its Intermezzo. Hard to say if this is Lill, the piano (Steinway), recording engineer (Tony Faulkner) or a combination of all three, but it is not a sound that always draws you in. This is not true, however, in the gentler pages of Kinderszenen which also conjures the best playing on the disc. Lill’s simplicity and directness is spot on: ‘Von Fremden Ländern un Menschen’ and ‘Träumerei’ are particularly touching.

The recording is also issued on LP (by Vivante), though I have not had the opportunity to hear this.