Mendelssohn and Howard Shelley are a musical marriage made in heaven. Stylish and delectably light-fingered, Shelley makes a flawless case in Vol 3 of his complete cycle for music once subjected to a damning verdict: ‘Mendelssohn does not go deep.’ True, Mendelssohn’s emotional spectrum is often geared to a conventional Victorian taste and there is much that is busy rather than genuinely eventful. His melodic material, whether presented in tranquil or flighty form, can seem banal or endearing according to taste.

Yet he is also full of surprises, with a greater spirit of adventure in the Third Caprice, with its grand ceremonial opening and fire-spitting follow-up. The B minor Scherzo (rather than the more familiar E minor) gives us a more familiar patter of fairy feet but the Scherzo a capriccio (once subjected to Horowitz’s mischievous trickery) outstays its welcome – a case of much ado about too little. If anyone can persuade us of Mendelssohn’s quality, though, it is Shelley. A master of a wide recorded repertoire (the Beethoven concertos, a complete Rachmaninov and a sadly incomplete Mozart concerto cycle), he makes it clear that Mendelssohn has a special place in his affections. Hyperion’s sound and presentation are as immaculate as ever.