Anton Rubinstein was an equivocal figure in his lifetime, as he somewhat ruefully recognised, and has remained so. As these pieces show, there was an astonishing virtuosity in the writing, which Fabio Grasso deals with in masterful fashion. By contemporary accounts, Rubinstein resembled Liszt in that the virtuosity was never strenuous, but always made to seem a natural manner of utterance, and it is greatly to his credit that Grasso concentrates on the lyrical voice to which it is all directed. Yet time and again there is a sense of what Grasso, in an excellent insert note, candidly accepts as ‘an inspiration that is quantitatively rich but qualitatively superficial…featuring melodies that are certainly pleasant but lacking in character and originality’.

That admitted, Grasso goes on to give the music its best showing. It is difficult not to have expectations of Chopin aroused in the Op 71 trio of pieces using the titles ‘Nocturne’, ‘Mazurka’ and ‘Scherzo’, then to miss the lyrical intensity of Chopin’s Nocturnes and the searching harmonic originality of his Mazurkas: the brilliance of this Scherzo can stand closer to Chopin at his best. Other pieces look forward to Rachmaninov; the side glances in the direction of Liszt are on the whole superficial, concerning finger dexterity especially in the Etudes, without Liszt’s particular charm and daring.

Such reservations seem inevitable when considering Rubinstein. There will always be those who consider these unnecessarily harsh. They will find in Grasso an intelligent and dextrous advocate for one of the great musicians of the 19th century, if not one of the great composers.