Vassily Primakov has won plaudits in these pages for his previous recordings of Chopin concertos and Beethoven sonatas but I watched this DVD with growing unease. Perhaps film is not Primakov’s medium for he is the kind of pianist who addresses the keyboard as though it’s going to bite him at any moment. I am sure – at least, I hope – his body and shoulders are not as tense as they look as he delicately brushes the keys in the three Brahms Intermezzos. True, the superbly voiced Steinway responds beautifully to his entreaties, though the excessive rubato and slow tempi will not suit everyone’s taste.

Here I have to part company with the booklet-note’s encomiums: “[His] empathy with Chopin’s spirit could not be more complete”, “In every piece his touch is perfect…in Chopin no one currently playing and recording sounds as good as this!” Primakov’s Chopin is not the sort of Chopin I respond to. In fact, after two pages of the G minor Ballade I had to resort to the score – and this is a piece I know rather well – to try and work out what was so unsettling. It was not just the unsuitable setting the director had chosen. Though the Brahms and Scriabin are filmed conventionally (spotlit soloist with darkened surround), the Chopin section has a background of empty orchestral chairs, looking as though the film crew had been hurriedly accommodated during a lunch break.

The same traits on display in the Brahms are present in Chopin but to a greater degree. Instead of subtle rubato, Primakov’s fluctuations dislodge the natural flow of the music with unexpected accents, surges of speed and then deceleration. In all four Ballades, he frequently seems unsure as to which is the dominant musical line and loses much detail in a blur of over-pedalling; there is a notable absence of a true leggiero touch, though not the number of rapid passages with their leading notes played tenuto. The Andante section of Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata is acutely observed but for an impeccable and thrilling reading of its Prestissimo volando section, Marc-André Hamelin (Hyperion, 6/96) is in an altogether different class.