It is not every pianist who can pick up the phone and ask Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky or Nelson Freire to come and record some duets with them – and, moreover, know that they will do so without question. Easier to ask your mother or sister or an important teacher. But then Sergio Tiempo is no ordinary pianist and the six people who join him on this recording are all family – both literally and metaphorically, especially Argerich and the late, much-missed Freire, who have known him (and nurtured him musically) since he was in his cradle.

Family relationships have always been of fundamental importance to Tiempo, and this is his second disc inspired by them. The repertoire on ‘Legacy’ (4/18) featured works by major composers that represented musical portraits of his family members. ‘Hommage’, in which he is joined by the six most significant musicians in his life, is a triumph on at least two levels: the performances themselves, and the kind of mixed-genre programme I wish more musicians would offer us, here for cello and piano, piano duet and two pianos.

The disc opens with Tiempo’s rocket launch into Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise brillante, in which he is joined by Maisky. It’s a canny opening choice, intense, showy and a little mischievous, the elder statesman holding a magisterial line above the exuberant playfulness of his protégé. Still smiling, I played through the whole thing again immediately before turning to two sombre movements from Ma Mère l’Oye with Sergio’s mother, Lyl Tiempo, a piano teacher of genius, playing primo. Alan Weiss, Tiempo’s friend and mentor since his early teenage years, takes the secondo part in four Hungarian Dances that illustrate the joy of shared domestic music-making between friends. In the two numbers by Mignone and Guastavino, Tiempo is joined by his ‘uncle’, the great Nelson Freire, celebrating their joint Latin American heritage.

More Chopin with Maisky and then it is the turn of Tiempo’s gifted sister, Karin Lechner, in Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for strings, the composer’s own piano-four-hands arrangement but played here on two pianos, presumably to lend a more orchestral bloom to proceedings. It is a triumph, both because of the pianists’ innate understanding of the other in terms of ensemble, phrasing, voicing and the rest of it, and also because it thoroughly convinces you that the work was originally conceived for two pianos. Finally, Tiempo and his ‘Aunt Marthita’ in Schubert’s Fantasy, two musicians of different generations at the top of their game, quietly, unassumingly revelling in what they do best. I hope you enjoy it all as much as I did.