Lisa de la Salle is a seasoned Lisztian. Her B minor Sonata is beautifully recorded (lovely-sounding piano), considered, technically assured and individual. Were this your introduction to the work, you would have done well. One of its merits is that it does not seek to dazzle but emphasises the work’s organic growth.

De la Salle does not get it all right. The episode after the first grandioso statement is robbed of tension and energy; sometimes, notably in the ‘first movement’, she cannot decide which of two voices must be given precedence and so makes both equally important; the brakes go on for the famous prestissimo octave salvo in the finale. In return, you get to hear, with more clarity than usual, felicitous details, her firm grasp of structure providing a convincing and individual account of this great work.

Maintaining the tone of hushed reverence, and modulating pleasantly from the Sonata’s final B major to E major, takes us into the rarely heard 10th and final number of Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (the collection with ‘Funérailles’ and the masterpiece that is ‘Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude’). This ‘Cantique d’amour’ is certainly ardent and intense, a splendid vehicle for de la Salle’s firm, rich chord-voicing (heard to advantage, too, in the Sonata).

Liszt’s mighty Réminiscences de Don Juan is given a muscular, full-bodied reading, de la Salle making the most of its overblown theatrics, even if the difference between presto and prestissimo eludes her in the bravura pages of the Champagne Aria. She plays the score uncut except for about 30 bars before the coda and the curious excision of four bars six before the end. I cannot agree with the booklet writer’s assertion that ‘[this recording] restores this somewhat neglected score to its former glory’ (its glory has never needed restoring nor has the score ever been neglected) but de la Salle’s magisterial account put me in mind of Jorge Bolet’s. I can offer no higher praise.