Listeners who’ve followed Andreas Haefliger’s solid virtuosity and serious, thoughtful musicianship from his Sony Classical days (will they ever reissue his superb Schumann and Gubaidulina discs?) to his recent “Perspectives” series will find no surprises here. Except for one, and I’ll get to it in due course. Haefliger’s innate affinity for Beethoven’s largely lyrical Op 28 Sonata manifests itself via the pianist’s relaxed tempi and ample tone. Taste and proportion govern his penchant for rhetorical broadenings and tenuti. Although Haefliger tempers Beethoven’s characteristic subito dynamics more than he ought to, he pays special heed to matters of articulation. You’ll notice how he distinguishes the slurs and staccati in the Scherzo’s main theme, whereas many pianists treat these notes equally. The Appassionata’s outer movements achieve a happy fusion of drama, cumulative sweep and textural clarity. Haefliger’s keen attention to the Andante con moto’s left-hand lines riveted my attention to the point that I barely noticed how he bumped up the variations’ tempi in bite-size increments.

With exposition repeat in tow, Haefliger sculpts the Schubert B flat’s lengthy first movement in long arcs propelled more by songful than symphonic impulses (the way he pulls back from certain high notes, for instance). And now here’s the surprise: for some reason, Haefliger races through the first ending nearly twice as fast as it’s written. Strange. Similar breadth and vocally informed phrasing inform the Andante sostenuto. The Scherzo’s Trio expands and contracts as Haefliger magnifies the bass-note syncopations, while the Finale convinces just as much as more personalised, lighter-footed accounts from Koroliov and Andsnes. You get a strong sense of concert-hall realism if you play these discs at a loud volume.