Given the title, it is surprising, to say the least, that not a single item on this disc was actually composed in emigration. And given that every piece bar one dates from before October 1917, it is curious that Alexander Karpeyev’s programme was conceived for a concert marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution. Its centrepiece is the Medtner Sonate-Ballade of 1913 14, inspired by Afanasy Fet’s poem depicting Christ’s temptations in the wilderness. Evidently an avid Medtner crusader, Karpeyev is unlikely to convert a Medtner sceptic; his playing is simply too expressively crowded and structurally arbitrary for that. Compare Marc-André Hamelin, who allows the sonata to grow organically while depicting each poetic moment in a distinct shade and bringing to vivid life the fight between good and evil represented by the satanic theme in the second movement.

The sacred theme continues in Rachmaninov’s (possibly) own transcription of a movement from his All-Night Vigil and his funereal Étude-tableau. There is certainly a high enough emotional charge in the latter but Karpeyev is no match for Richter’s earth-shattering monumentality, nor for Horowitz’s theatricality. Similarly the Three Movements from Petrushka. Karpeyev’s are shadowed by a number of laboured passages, so that the performance as a whole becomes something of a battle royal – not a patch on the classic Pollini for bravura and colouristic flair.

Rachmaninov’s rarely performed Fragments and the five Grechaninov miniatures are a pleasant bonus. But I’m not sure who would want the average-to-good accounts of barely half of Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives. There is a workable recital programme here – ‘Before the Revolution’ or ‘Before Emigration’, perhaps – but as a CD I fear it is hardly collectable.