Here are two of Beethoven’s longest works, one written at a time of personal crisis (1817-18) which the very act of composition helped resolve, the other, as Michael Leslie suggests in his own detailed (and illustrated) annotation, “a journey or pilgrimage” (1819-23).

These oft-recorded Himalayan peaks of the repertoire present a challenge to any pianist – and to marketing people, for many great names have reached the summits and laid claim to the territory. For this reviewer, it is Solomon in the Hammerklavier (1952 – EMI, 7/93^R) though now with the addition of Ronald Brautigam’s revelatory new recording on a fortepiano; in the Diabelli Variations, it is Schnabel (1937, 8/38^R) and Kovacevich (Philips, 8/90). This newcomer, for all its merits, is no replacement for either.

There’s a didactic quality to Leslie’s technically accomplished playing and, in the Hammerklavier, an unsatisfactory recorded piano sound that keeps the listener at arm’s length. It is not the empty aircraft hangar one sometimes encounters but it is a far from intimate ambience and does no favours to the pianist, especially in the first three movements. The quasi-improvisatory Largo is arrestingly played while the great Fugue, despatched with exemplary textual clarity, fizzes with ferocious energy. The microphone placement is different for the Diabelli Variations. Here the music benefits from its closer examination of the instrument (though in a colourless acoustic) allied to Leslie’s sparing use of the pedal and altogether more winning tone production. Disc 2 ends with the Australian pianist discussing the Variations in both English and German – a nice touch.