The coupling of Scriabin with Rachmaninov is a particularly interesting one. Fellow students though they were, their personalities were markedly different, a fact that becomes apparent not only through their music but also through their styles of piano-playing. Rachmaninov’s well-intentioned recitals of Scriabin after the latter’s death in 1915 sparked criticism that he had failed to understand the airborne qualities of Scriabin’s music, and indeed to hear recordings of their playing highlights the contrasts between Rachmaninov’s intellectual discipline and Scriabin’s wilder impetuosity.

Peter Orth cunningly blurs the boundaries with this disc. Scriabin composed his Op 11 Preludes over a period of years from 1888 to 1896 before his creative thinking had taken its hedonistic, mystical, egocentric course, whereas Rachmaninov’s First Sonata dates to his fertile, fully formed maturity around the time of the Second Symphony. Nevertheless, Orth brings out the volatile nature that was always inherent in Scriabin’s music. These Preludes might echo Chopin in the sense that there are 24 of them in all the major and minor keys, but Orth shows that the colour of the harmony, the shape of motifs and the weaving of textures have a distinct, pungent character of their own.

Rachmaninov’s First Sonata is also presented in its ripe, dramatic intensity, but Orth’s performance has a compelling challenger in Nikolay Lugansky’s 2012 recording, coupled with the original version of the Second Sonata. Lugansky’s interpretation still outshines all others in its appreciation of the sonata’s broad sweep of structure, its potent soul and its power of utterance.