Now in the autumn of his career as a pianist, Vladimir Ashkenazy must have found himself hard-pressed to name anything from the mainstream repertoire he has not recorded. With the complete Mozart concertos, Beethoven sonatas and a complete Chopin cycle behind him (to name only a fraction of his gargantuan undertakings for Decca over 40 years), he turns to Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, a magnificent if surprising offering.

Complete sets of the ‘48’ by Russian pianists such as Samuel Feinberg, Richter and Tatyana Nikolaieva gave the lie to the assumption that Bach was viewed in Russia as little more than useful exam fodder. Today Ashkenazy, long-exposed to wider traditions, joins those early and illustrious champions, his unfailingly direct and uncluttered view achieving a special sense of musical cleansing and reassurance. True, his most distinguished predecessors such as Feinberg and, most recently, Barenboim (who once mercilessly teased him about his predominantly romantic tastes) may be more imaginative, more inclined to colour, and underline Bach with their own very individual character. But if in the long term Edwin Fisher may be more musical, Rosalyn Tureck more magisterial, with Ashkenazy you are on the safest and sanest ground.

Time and again you are left to admire the way he never burdens Bach’s transparency and profundity with a portentous or heavy air of significance. Touchingly and admirably, he always allows Bach his own voice, his manner at once masterly and self-effacing. How simply and directly he colours and inflects the first Prelude, how assertive but never bullying his second Prelude and Fugue. The third Prelude flashes with all of his early virtuosity, the eighth is ideally sustained and the magical chimes of No 13 are caught to perfection. No 15 is played with a rollicking brilliance, the fugue sent on its way with an exhilarating relish and verve. Try the fugue from No 19 and you will hear Ashkenazy’s open-hearted delight in Bach’s energy and polyphony. His light, bouncing staccato in Prelude No 13 allows for maximum clarity and is achieved without a hint of mannerism, and he is as at home in the 22nd Prelude’s pensive B flat minor flow as in the rabble-rousing fugue of No 12 (Book 2).

A hint of severity here and there may send you back to other more haunting and considerate voices, but you will surely return to Ashkenazy for his unfailing lucidity and musicianship. Decca’s set comes on three rather than four CDs, and the engineers have fully captured the special strength and flavour of this indefatigable artist’s sound.