Volume 6 of Emil von Sauer’s solo piano music continues a unique undertaking and one that includes a first recording of the Suite moderne. Once again Sauer’s amiable and discursive music pays eloquent tribute to his facility as a pianist and lovers of gentle melodies and romantically swirling figuration will feel entirely at home.

On the other hand, Sauer’s succession of salon charmers possess too many ideas that fade as quickly as they appear, too slim and derivative to imprint themselves on the mind. The shadows of Brahms, Schumann, Saint-Saëns and Moszkowski flit across their busy surfaces, and ‘moderne’ is an odd subtitle for the Suite. The opening Prelude passione remembers the virtuoso chording of the Saint-Saëns F minor Prelude and Fugue, while the over-extended ‘Air lugubre’ gets lost in its own melancholy. Again, the codas of the majority of these works prove a problem because, rather like Tchaikovsky in his solo piano music, Sauer seems uncertain how to end his argument, frequently chopping it off in mid-flight. The Etudes (of which Sauer wrote 29) are more successful, with a greater realisation that brevity can be the soul of wit.

Less contentiously, it would be difficult to imagine these pieces played with greater authority than by Oleg Marshev. With Rachmaninov’s and Prokofiev’s complete piano concertos and Prokofiev’s solo piano music under his belt (all on Danacord), he proves himself equally at home in a less demanding and less characterful idiom. Never for a moment does he sound as if involved in a labour of duty rather than love, and even the most facile offering is spun off with enviable agility and style. The recordings are as full and resonant as the playing; this is a valuable addition to a burgeoning series.