Uchida and Schumann are a wonderful match: she conveys his febrile qualities with such naturalness, as was vividly demonstrated in her previous disc, of Davidsbündlertänze and the C major Fantasie (12/10). What’s striking about this new one, which is if anything even finer, is how shockingly modern she makes Schumann sound. You might think that you know Waldszenen; you might think that it’s one of Schumann’s cosier creations. Think again: this is hyper-reactive but always at the service of the music. Never has its emotional world sounded quite so conflicted. But there’s much beauty, too: ‘Einsame Blumen’ is a miracle of colour and nuance, while the sequence of chords towards the end of ‘Abschied’ is utterly magical. While Pires dreams and Volodos beguiles with sheer beauty of sound, Uchida brings to the fore the uneasier aspects of this work.

The Second Sonata then arrives, hurled down like a gauntlet. Any notion that Schumann’s sonatas aren’t up to the standard of his other solo piano music is scotched once and for all. It passes by at white heat – just as it does when she plays it in the concert hall; yet what makes this such a gripping performance is the contrast between the manic writing and the inwardness. The colours in the Andantino…well, they have to be heard rather than described.

But there’s more. She finishes with the extraordinary late Gesänge der Frühe. Anderszewski made a very strong case for these undersung pieces a couple of years back. He is generally faster than Uchida, who wrings every ounce of emotion from these fundamentally austere pieces. The first is cushioned in the most beautiful sound, in contrast to the second, where she unflinchingly lays bare the torture of composition itself; in the penultimate piece, Anderszewski has a greater, trickling ease, Uchida is more considered, more pained. Both pianists in their different ways utterly put these wondrous works on the map.

This is such thoughtful and thought-provoking playing. Uchida at her best, in other words, which is quite something.