Schubert composed his A minor Sonata, D784, in 1823, the year in which he learnt he was suffering from an incurable venereal disease. It is hard to discount the suggestion when listening to the first two movements that they both, in their different ways, reflect the anguished predicament of the doomed composer. Some may feel it is reflected to a melodramatic degree in the opening Allegro giusto. Richter digs deep in this remarkable, bleak and uncompromising reading. The enforced optimism of the final Allegro vivace leaves us with a bitter taste, while the famously treacherous closing octave triplets are dispatched with breathtaking nonchalance.

From the same cough-inflected recital comes the comparative rarity of the 13 Hüttenbrenner-Variations of 1816, based on a theme from the First String Quartet of Schubert’s friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner. Not consistently great Schubert, I suggest, but worth hearing with Richter as its advocate (listen to the wonderful way he handles the rippling left-hand passagework in Var 7).

Without allowing us to hear the rest of the recital (what did he play? was it any good?), the disc skips back 10 years earlier and to a different location for Schumann’s Op 12 Fantasiestücke with Nos 4 (“Grillen�) and 6 (“Fabel�) unaccountably omitted by the pianist. Glorious playing again, punctuated by expectorating Mancunians, including a notably light-fingered Traumes Wirren. Cloches à travers les feuilles closes the disc in a characteristically individual yet convincing manner, a performance which, at 6'18" – two minutes longer than Michelangeli’s and 2 longer than Gieseking’s – makes you marvel anew at Richter’s phrasing and tonal control.