Collectors familiar with APR’s previous releases of Simon Barere’s complete 1934/36 HMV recordings (12/85) will want to know how the newly remastered edition compares. Bryan Crimp’s vibrant transfers on the 1990 reissue contained a fair degree of surface pops, clicks, and occasional distortions inherent in the source material. These defects are considerably tamed via computerised noise reduction techniques (including, I wager, a healthy dose of the CEDAR system), and without compromising Barere’s huge colourful timbre, although the earlier transfers prove just a hair brighter on top.

In any event, listeners coming to these recordings for the first time will first notice Barere’s stupefying technical gifts. The jaw-dropping speed he sets for Liszt’s Gnomenreigen stays solidly on track, the left-hand repeated notes atomically fuelled. Notice how his ravenously accurate southpaw devours his teacher Felix Blumenfeld’s showy Etude for the left hand in elegant swoops.

His effortless, ambidextrous command of double notes in Liszt’s Rapsodie espagnole and the Don Juan Fantasy, and Balakirev’s Islamey are guaranteed to humble even today’s hottest super-pianists. Yet the latter selection’s central section also stands out for Barere’s spacious phrasing, ravishing legato touch, and subtle pedalling. High virtuoso polish and subjective poetry also yield fresh and convincing results in the Chopin C sharp minor Scherzo (rarely has the coda seemed so brisk and polished at the same time).

To be sure, there are moments when Barere’s fingers run faster than his brain, to paraphrase the late Harold C Schoenberg: In Chopin’s A flat Waltz, for instance, the increasingly speeded-up quavers throw the rhythmic momentum off kilter, while an overheated Scriabin D sharp minor Etude leaves a fair share of battle scars in its wake. After playing its introductory measures at ‘normal’ tempo, Barere races through Schumann’s Toccata faster than the music’s gnarly textures can register to the naked ear. It’s a party record, granted, but the nonchalance of it all begs your indulgence. APR ensures completeness by including alternate takes, and a compre- hensive Barere/HMV discography. Needless to say, this release recommends itself to any self-respecting pianophile.