Initial enthusiasm for a record largely devoted to Schubert dances is easily dampened if the performances are insufficiently vital, affectionate and ebullient. Diamond chippings from the master’s workshop, the 12 Valses nobles and the 34 Valses sentimentales (titles later borrowed by Ravel), to say nothing of the entrancing Mélodie hongroise, are alive with twists and turns and startling modulations that make them so much more than ‘minor works by a major composer’. Often offered as delectable encores by Schubertians of the stature of Brendel, Imogen Cooper and, most of all, Myra Hess, they can send listeners home with a smile on their face and a spring in their step (though with an occasional awareness of darker imaginings).

Alas, Guillaume Coppola, described in the accompanying blurb as ‘scintillating’, ‘enigmatic’, ‘stunning’ and ‘among the élite of todays young pianists’, is only intermittently engaged in his enviable task. How one longs for playing less studio-bound, for a greater sense of imaginative freedom. Again, in the first of Schubert’s three A minor sonatas there is too little awareness of the composer’s already audacious drama and experiment, too much playing for safety. The central Allegretto quasi andantino’s tick-tock momentum becomes monotonous; and although there is a greater sense of Schubert’s vivace qualification in the finale there is, overall, too little lyric intensity. The recording is adequate rather than outstanding.