Leon McCawley launches his all Schumann disc in high spirits with Faschingsschwank aus Wien. It’s the faster movements that come off most convincingly here, with the pianist finding the right combination of accentuation and momentum to carry along the opening Allegro at a fine lick, while the finale has a barely concealed glee. Where I think he’s less telling is in the Romanze, which lacks the daring freedom of Pires, and in the Intermezzo, where his habit of leaning on particular notes comes to sound slightly calculated.

In Kinderszenen, too, McCawley is effective in the propulsive movements – ‘Curious Story’, the mock-pomposity of ‘An Important Event’, or the ‘Knight of the Hobby Horse’, which has a real one-in-a-bar feel. In the more withdrawn numbers his phrasing and rubato can seem somewhat laboured, especially alongside Argerich and Pires, to name just two.

He finishes with what is arguably Schumann’s most overtly virtuoso work, the Etudes symphoniques, choosing to include the five posthumous variations – a definite asset – and placing them within the études in a manner that, as he explains in the booklet, is ‘instinctive and structural’. Again, it tends to be the faster numbers that come off best; but overall I had a sense that this was a slightly safe reading of a work that ideally needs to flirt with danger rather more overtly. If you listen to an artist such as Géza Anda or Alexander Romanovsky in the ninth étude, you get the sense of being on the brink of what is possible. True, McCawley produces some beautiful sounds: he finds the requisite dreaminess in the second variation, which is followed by a very fine fifth variation (though no one can quite touch Cortot here); and, unlike the recent performance from Freddy Kempf, there is never a hint of coarseness in the accentuation. But listen to Hamelin and you have a greater sense of the architectural whole, of a great emotional and technical crescendo up to the finale that truly sweeps you along; McCawley is just a little low in the volatility stakes by comparison.