If not a debut, this release introduces Daniela Roma to a wider listenership with its judicious overview of Scriabin’s 1890s output. An exception is the Étude in C sharp minor which, like Rachmaninov’s prelude in this key, became a calling-card that rather outlived its purpose.

Roma plays it with due eloquence, then is no less assured in the Études that encapsulate the young composer as they range from the laconic dexterity of the earlier items to those more substantial later pieces. In particular, the Tenebroso and Alla ballata define the quixotic moods of much that came after, while the feverish intensity of Patetico ensured it remains a popular encore. Roma has the measure of the sequence overall, then is hardly less inside the set of Preludes with its dignified initial Maestoso and tensile closing Presto, but the Impromptus require more definition for their contrasts to register most fully.

The extended pieces that frame this collection would ideally have been reversed (and Danilo Prefumo’s detailed annotations rather suggest as much). Roma astutely controls the blustery virtuosity of the Allegro de concert, though she might have balanced the emotional force of the Fantasy with even greater awareness of that formal ingenuity which, far more than the symphonies on either side, makes it the conceptual forerunner of the final six piano sonatas.

None of these works lacks comparisons – Piers Lane (Hyperion, 12/92) in the Études, Valentina Lisitsa (Decca, 1/16) in the Allegro or Alexander Melnikov (Harmonia Mundi, 7/06) in the Fantasy – but for technical poise and interpretative insight, heard in warmly immediate sound, Roma is a natural in this music.