The pianist Leonard Pennario has never been ranked with the all-time greats. He died in 2008 but never achieved the same celebrity as his much shorter-lived American contemporaries William Kapell (b1922) and Julius Katchen (b1926). But Pennario (b1924) was nevertheless one of the most brilliant pianists of his generation. He left an enormous discography (over 60 LPs), most of them for the Capitol label, and was the first pianist, after the composer, to record all five of Rachmaninov’s works for piano and orchestra. He was invited to replace Arthur Rubinstein, no less, in the so-called ‘Million-Dollar Trio’ with Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky. Oh yes, Pennario was quite a player.

You might wonder, as I have done, listening to this valuable and welcome collection why he is not better known. Might it be because of his dalliance with crossover repertoire? Discs of Gottschalk and arrangements for piano and orchestra of things like Liebestraum No 3 with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra (neither, alas, included here, being on other labels) were reason enough to raise the eyebrows of sniffier commentators, to say nothing of Midnight on the Cliffs, composed when he 18, as ripe a piece of over-the-top pianistic campery as you’ll hear.

His 12 LPs for RCA are presented in the now familiar format of their miniature originals with correspondingly microscopic sleeve notes on the rear covers. I began with Disc 2 purely because it was the first Pennario LP I ever bought. It was entitled ‘Virtuoso Favourites’, my eye having been caught by the first track: the Emperor Waltz arranged by Pennario, a Strauss transcription the equal of anything by Tausig, Rosenthal or Dohnányi. There’s a genuinely witty Polka from Shostakovich’s The Age of Gold, a barnstorming Ravel La valse and one of the most thrilling Gounod-Liszt Faust Waltzes on disc (and with a cut of only a few bars, for once). Indeed, a notable characteristic of Pennario’s playing is his extraordinary articulation at extreme speed. Arguably, the two Rachmaninov transcriptions do not have the same light touch as Moiseiwitsch and the composer, but as an example of transcendent technique and breathtaking clarity – Horowitz without the neurosis – this particular album is hard to beat.

It is slightly more interesting than the one entitled ‘Humoresques’, a collection of popular short works (Für Elise and Dvořák’s Humoresque among them) most of which sound as if played at the behest of the label rather than from pianistic conviction. But then turn to the two discs of Debussy Préludes (both albeit on the short side at 35'15" and 36'18" respectively) and the reverse is true. I found these quite enchanting – surprisingly intimate, unaffected (perhaps too straightforward for some tastes) with highlights including a ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’ of beguiling simplicity and a memorably brilliant account of ‘Feux d’artifice’.

As to the piano and orchestra discs, CD1 has a fizzing version of the Paganini Rhapsody (a Pennario speciality) with Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops at the height of their fame, and the top of their game, in 1963, followed – the other side of the LP – by Franck’s Symphonic Variations and Litolff’s Scherzo. There are the two Liszt concertos with the LSO, Rachmaninov’s First and Fourth concertos (truly outstanding) under André Previn with the RPO (1964) and back to the LSO a year later for the Schumann concerto and Richard Strauss’s Burleske under Seiji Ozawa.

These are all fine, each one deserving a near-the-top place in anyone’s collection, but of surpassing interest are the four discs of chamber music with Piatigorsky and Heifetz. How Pennario viewed his billing on the front covers of the LPs I do not know but many artists would surely consider it a personal affront (rather gratifyingly, the size of the font is reversed on these CDs in the pianist’s favour). More significantly, Pennario’s place in the sound picture reflects his place in the pecking order. In the opening page of the Mendelssohn Cello Sonata with Piatigorsky, for instance, the cello is so upfront you simply can’t tell what the piano is doing (a favourite recording with Feuerman and Rupp, even though from 1939, is far clearer). However, the balance is improved in the Strauss Sonata made nearly a year later (1966). It’s a shame because this is a compelling partnership, Piatigorsky playing the Mendelssohn with his characteristic magisterial projection. Again, in the six trios by Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Arensky, Turina, Beethoven and Brahms, and the Franck Piano Quintet (few of which have been out of the catalogue for long since they were first released) one could hardly complain about the quality of music-making, yet in every one I would wish for the piano to be more forwardly placed.

Too self-effacing for stardom? Too modest for his own good? Moot points, but Leonard Pennario demands to be heard, reassessed and, on this evidence alone, admitted to the piano Hall of Fame.