From the word go this disc is, sadly, a non-starter in terms of sound and rival versions of the same repertoire, try as I have to be sympathetic to the artist’s vision. The opening of Mendelssohn’s E minor Prelude is marked allegro con fuoco, its eight groups of demi-semiquavers in the bar to be played leggiero with the melody assai marcato. That is what you get on Julius Katchen’s benchmark 1953 recording (another favourite is the young Cherkassky in 1928). What we get here is a generalised wash of sound at a tempo not much above moderato. After listening to the Fugue and the first movement of the Fantasie on one sound system I changed to another, thinking that there might be a fault with the speakers. Everything was bass heavy and veiled in pedal – what was it? – the sound picture simply woolly and unfocused.

No, the second system produced the same results so, accepting that this was clearly (or, rather, not so clearly) Miss Stern’s preferred sound, I concentrated on the rest of the Schumann. The March’s essential character is underlined by the composer – “energetically [or assertively] throughout” – but this performance is underpowered and flaccid. Only in the final movement does the pianist get close to embracing this most personal of musical love-letters.

The Abegg Variations float by prettily enough, the ears having now adjusted to the sound, but neither this nor the Etudes symphoniques bear comparison with, at random, Kissin in his Carnegie Hall debut or, in the latter work, the far superior Hamelin.