There is very little film available of Kempff and to see him playing the composer with whom he was most closely associated makes this a treasurable document despite the restricted sound (not that he was ever willing to over-exploit the full sonority of the instrument). From all appearances, this 40-year-old television recital was aired live, the performance unedited. During the announcement (in French) after the rarely heard Rondo, the pianist has put on his spectacles – not for the Hammerklavier but for an interview, straight to camera, with a disembodied voice. Having delivered his thoughts on Op 106 in German-inflected French (English subtitles), he waits patiently until the same voice has announced the main dish of the programme before removing his spectacles and launching into the Allegro. It’s all charmingly of another age.

As to the main reason for investing in this DVD, Kempff’s aristocratic address of the keyboard, much of his playing accomplished with eyes closed or with a far-away gaze, confirms an artist who has long ago solved to his own satisfaction all the interpretative and architectural problems of this pianistic Everest. It is not blemish free: the opening credit, edited in, unhappily selects the restatement of the first movement’s opening subject, one of Kempff’s splashiest moments; towards the end of the Allegro and in the Scherzo there are further blemishes which the pianist simply absorbs as par for the course.

It is a reading closer in tempi and phrasing to his 1964 recording than the 1951 version (one which I personally, if marginally, prefer). In the film, the Adagio is broader (17'13") compared with Deutsche Grammophon (15'21" in his earlier recording, 16'13" in the DG account contemporaneous with the film). The Fugue is more secure on disc than on film, but finally all comparisons of performance and sound quality are outweighed by the immense pleasure of watching this masterly artist living and breathing Beethoven, with unfussy if old-fashioned television presentation focusing attention on the man and the music.