EMI’s series of young pianists championed by the peerless Argentine has been more a succès d’estime than a career-making project. Previous endorsees have tended to be lacklustre. Have we heard of Brakhman, Moglievsky, Vallina or Lim since? The Polish pianist Alexander Gurning (born in Belgium, in 1973) is a cut above his predecessors. And it’s a shrewdly chosen recital (we can take his purely mechanical accomplishments for granted), illustrating the virtuoso, the atmospheric painter and the imaginative programmer. Would that all début discs offered as much.

One’s attention is immediately grabbed by the exuberant opening of the ‘Danse Russe’ (crotchet c128, as opposed to Stravinsky’s suggested Allegro giusto of 116). Though it is cleanly articulated and undeniably exciting, I’d hate to be the Russe who had to Danse to this. Simon Trpceski, though in a less attractive recorded ambience than Gurning, takes the composer at his word to powerful effect. Shura Cherkassky brings his inimitable touch and infinite variety to ‘La Semaine grasse’ in a live 1979 account (Decca, nla). Gurning is fine. He’s different and individual but, as with almost all the disc, faces stiff competition in the first-choice stakes.

I much enjoyed the carefully prepared selection of Préludes, though a touch more languorous repose in ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’ and a more veiled tone for ‘Poissons d’or’ would not have gone amiss. The pianist’s sharp and frequent nasal intakes of breath are less distracting after a while.

Gurning’s rarity is the ingenious transcription of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune by the English pianist Leonard Borwick (1868-1925). Though some details are lost (the violin solo, très doux, at 5'20" and Borwick’s ppp arpeggios at 6'11"), and the last bars are not played quite as notated, this is a wonderful performance of an arrangement not, I think, currently available on disc – persuasive enough to make Gurning’s fellow pianists track down the score and for you to buy the disc.