This is the first appearance in these pages of the French pianist Jean-Paul Gasparian (b1995, Paris) but I suspect he will be appearing fairly regularly over the next few years if this Rachmaninov is anything to go by, his third recording for the Evidence label.

The Salon de Musique de l’hôtel de la Fondation Singer-Polignac, Paris, where Gasparian has been artist-in-residence since 2020, provides a superb acoustic for this repertoire, neither too distantly airy nor cloyingly close, allowing the full register of the Steinway to ring out to great effect. The evocation of bells, as we know, is never far away in Rachmaninov’s music – nor the mixture of torment, exaltation, melancholy and joy which, in these performances, makes one realise anew how much in these respects Rachmaninov was the heir to Tchaikovsky.

The tumultuous outer movements of the Sonata are vividly characterised; and if others have paid more attention to the composer’s dynamics (Nikolai Lugansky, for one), few will be disappointed by the structural grasp, the long paragraphs and sheer élan of Gasparian, not so very different in execution and concept to the compelling young Russian Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev (Decca, 2/19).

The two pianists have much in common, also, in their accounts of the six Moments musicaux. Gasparian reminds us what wonderful pieces these are, their origins surely the result of improvisations. With their Schumannesque duality, there could scarcely be a greater contrast between the lyrical grace of No 5 (surely the inspiration for the D major Prelude, Op 23 No 4, which Gasparian places after the Sonata) and the relentless energy of No 6, heard here in a moving performance where happy exuberance turns into almost manic desperation. The recital ends with a fine account of the classy transcription of ‘Vocalise’ made in 1951 by the Scottish pianist and composer Alan Richardson (1904 78).