Do the mellow, thoughtful and unpressured qualities that Konstantin Lifschitz brings to Bach’s Art of Fugue correspond to the gentle, rounded timbres characterising the Bechstein concert grand used for this recording? Perhaps so, yet one should also consider that his overall tempi occupy a moderate comfort zone: nothing too slow and nothing too fast, although the Canon at the Octave swings by at a buoyant clip. Lifschitz may not match the legato fluidity and dynamic architecture that distinguish Evgeni Koroliov’s reference version, nor the rhythmic point and characterful wit that Charles Rosen brought to the fugues employing several subjects, yet even Lifschitz’s most liberal fluctuations of pulse never cause the music to drag, as is sometimes the case with the Sokolov and Nikolaieva recordings.

At least Lifschitz remains consistent in his interpretative point of view and repeated hearings reveal interesting details, such as the slight melodic alteration in Contrapunctus I’s bass voice, the delightfully shaped interplay when Contrapunctus IV’s “cuckoo” motive gets going and the technical ease with which the pianist presents the awkwardly laid-out three-voice mirror fugues. He also overdubs himself in the latter’s two-keyboard versions and offers both the earlier and more commonly performed versions of the extraordinary Canon in Augmentation in Contrary Motion. In short, anyone in the market for a piano version of Bach’s valedictory masterpiece won’t go wrong with Lifschitz, but try to hunt down Koroliov and Rosen first.