It seems short-sighted for an emerging piano talent such as Lindsay Garritson to bring out a new CD without including information about herself or the musical contents. The absence of any notes about the music – especially for someone like Carl Vine – is a drawback. No matter if Garritson thinks that the music should speak for itself: some information about the composer who wrote it would be useful.

It’s easy to ascertain why young pianists like Garritson are drawn to Carl Vine. His piano-writing is virtuoso as hell, sophisticatedly tonal, and falls gratefully and effectively both on the instrument and on the ear. Everything is extremely well crafted; and while often exciting, the music never threatens or provokes. Conservatory students who are afraid of Frederic Rzewski’s music flock to Carl Vine’s. Vine’s style builds upon the modern conservative aesthetic set forth in the Barber Sonata and Prokofiev’s ‘War’ Sonatas, without imitating Barber and Prokofiev. Actually, ‘Thumper’, the third of The Anne Landa Preludes, contains a passage seemingly lifted from Prokofiev’s ‘Suggestion diabolique’, but no matter.

Garritson’s dazzling technique, poised assurance, rhythmic suppleness and clarion sonority are exactly what this repertoire needs. She makes child’s play out of all the bravura passages, from rapid counterpoint at opposite ends of the keyboard to the torrential climaxes of both the First and Fourth Sonatas (the latter recorded here for the first time). In fact, her slightly dry yet galvanising way with the the First Sonata’s opening movement’s jazzy syncopations makes more impact when measured against Joyce Yang’s generalised, heavily pedalled live Van Cliburn Competition recording (Harmonia Mundi, 2/06). At the same time, Garritson also relishes this composer’s dark, brooding and introspective side. The recorded sound is bright to the point of strident, while louder moments convey a slightly metallic patina; Vine’s sound world cries out for a rounder, more resonant ambience, as does Garritson’s mastery, which deserves world-class production values, the support of an established record label and, it goes without saying, an annotator.