The concept for Canadian-Trinidadian pianist Stewart Goodyear’s latest album is something of a puzzle. Its title, ‘Phoenix’, derives, so the marketing tells us – the booklet contains nothing of this – from the repertoire featured rising from the ashes of the ‘sound world, past traditions and gestures of Franz Liszt’, yet not a note of Liszt is heard to set the context. True, all the works collected here tend to the illustrative, even overtly programmatic, free in form and requiring a virtuoso technique to perform, which Goodyear possesses in abundance.

The major (and earliest) item, of course, is Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), which receives a robust performance overall, with much nuanced playing throughout. Goodyear is quicksilver and light in ‘Tuileries’ and the ‘Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks’, powerfully taut in ‘Samuel Goldberg and Schmuÿle’ and ‘Baba-Yaga’, roof-raising in ‘The Great Gate at Kiev’. ‘Bydo’, however, is surely too fast – these are oxen on steroids, in need of a drugs test! If not a standout interpretation like Behzod Abduraimov’s Gramophone Awards short-listed account this year, it is nonetheless a fine one.

What many collectors will be attracted to here, though, are the novelties, the finest being Middle Passage (1983) by Anthony Davis, best known, perhaps, for his opera Amistad, and Secret and Glass Gardens (2000), Jennifer Higdon’s evocative nocturne featured in the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition. Both have been recorded before, in mixed-composer collections, Higdon’s twice for Innova, Davis’s by Ursula Oppens in a coruscating – and appreciably quicker – performance for Music & Arts. Goodyear relishes Higdon’s gentler textures as much as Davis’s more volatile, mercurial inspiration, much as he does in the two Debussy pieces. The programme is bookended by two of Goodyear’s own compositions, piano reductions from larger pieces that reflect his part-West Indian heritage to invigorating effect. And yes, there is a Lisztian quality to both. Bright Shiny Things’ presentation is flashy and odd: for example, the track-listing does not credit the composers, who are reduced to a footnote, and there is no booklet note. The sound is a little stolid but acceptable.