Once spotlit after a dramatic move from Russia to America, Vladimir Feltsman quietly stepped out of the limelight to enjoy a less publicised career. And, as this new addition to his Chopin series shows, his playing has acquired a poetic richness less apparent in those early, over-publicised days. Throughout both the Waltzes and Impromptus Feltsman plays with an abiding love of Chopin’s genius. As on his earlier Nimbus recordings, his technique is as superb and assured as it is unobtrusive, and in the Waltzes his playing glows with grace and affection, alive with many personal and engaging touches. There is a special sense, too, of how the Waltzes show Chopin’s public face yet are characteristically blessed with a subtle and often melancholy undertow. What warmth and pleading Feltsman shows in the very un-brillante A minor Waltz (it is oddly and mistakenly described as Valse brillante); what wistfulness and interior magic he brings to the elegiac C sharp minor Waltz. Feltsman may be more robust than seductive in the insinuating D flat Waltz, Op 70 No 3, but overall these are among the finest Chopin Waltz performances on disc.

How he excels, no less, in the teasing elegancies and improvisatory, conversational brio of the Impromptus, making you fall in love with them all over again. Feltsman has written his own notes, Nimbus’s New York-based recording is outstanding and I can scarcely wait to hear this exceptional artist in what promises to be a complete Chopin cycle.