In Nottingham years ago I heard him give one of the most memorable Beethoven Fourths I have ever heard, but this Emperor is a heavy-handed affair. He is on his best behaviour – indeed, you may wonder where the mercurial, spontaneous Cherkassky has gone for, while some will respond to his maestoso deliberations in the first movement, to others it will sound cautious and four-square. Similarly, whenever the much-repeated theme of the Rondo returns it is a case of “oh-no-here-it-comes-again”. I suspect Cherkassky played this work because of the Adagio: his response to this is utterly bewitching.

If the Gershwin, recorded at the Last Night of the Proms in 1985, was an uncommon choice for Cherkassky it was, on this evidence, even more so for Vernon Handley. I recall the broadcast and my feeling of relief that everyone finished together after too many moments of near misses and potential derailments. In the slow movement, where again Cherkassky is at his best, the cymbal-player makes a dreadful faux pas, mistaking his cue after the piano figure at 10'01" for its earlier appearance at 8'31". But on the plus side, there are several memorable passages – this is Cherkassky, after all – his very first entry not least among them: it takes a piano genius to pluck something like that out of the air.