Remarkably, this is the first live instrumental recital recorded at La Scala. Purely as a souvenir d’occasion, therefore, the disc has a certain cachet. It is typical of Barenboim to pull off such a coup and his programme is a well chosen selection of Liszt’s music inspired by iconic Italians – Petrarch, St Francis of Assisi, Dante and Verdi.

It was perhaps unfortunate that I decided to start listening not at the beginning of the disc but midway through with the Dante Sonata, a performance I should not willingly ever want to hear again. It has all the hallmarks of being under-prepared. Look no further than the passage beginning at 3'24" where the important left-hand octave triplets are submerged, and ending with the hopelessly messy descending octaves at 3'48". Worst of all, throughout the recital Barenboim’s penetrating fortissimos go through the tone and, if they don’t rattle your dentures, will certainly set your teeth on edge (try from 14'19" on). For hair-raising drama, a poetic cantabile and technically proficient accounts turn to Andsnes and Hough, inter alia.

Barenboim’s clangourous over projection assaults the ears all too frequently in other parts of the programme, especially when the going gets tough (parts of the Trovatore and Rigoletto paraphrases, for instance). In the quieter, more reflective pieces, he produces some convincing lyricism most notably in the three Petrarch Sonnets, which open the recital, and in the final pages of Legende No 1, but none of these performances holds a candle to the finest on disc. Barenboim must have approved this release but I do rather wonder why.