For his second recording of Debussy’s 12 Etudes (the first was for Arabesque, 2/90), Garrick Ohlsson chooses the iconoclastic blaze of Prokofiev’s four early Etudes and the alternating hyperactivity and interior life of Bartók’s three Etudes for his coupling. So far so good. And yet if Debussy’s late masterpiece is a crowning example of pragmatism (octaves, thirds, sixths, etc) transmuted into an eerie and compulsive fantasy, Ohlsson’s performance is one-sided. Scrupulously ordered and prepared at one level, it is studio-bound at another. Every ‘i’ is dotted, every ‘t’ crossed, but mystery and evocation are kept very much at arm’s length. There is too little of Gieseking’s iridescence, Uchida’s nervous intensity, Thibaudet’s wit or Pollini’s greater overall mastery. There is an element of stiffness in ‘Pour les octaves’, too little inclination to seek out hidden voices and patterns (particularly when you compare him with Van Cliburn – RCA), too literal a view of the Mediterranean luxuriance of ‘Pour les agréments’ and a tired response to the final ‘Pour les accords’, where Debussy’s sinister march in jackboots lacks much of its menace.

Much the same could be said for Ohlsson’s Prokofiev and Bartók. There is none of Freddy Kempf’s youthful and characterful assault on the First Etude (Hyperion) or of Matti Raekallio’s icy aplomb in all four (Ondine). Similarly, Zoltán Kocsis leaves Ohlsson far behind in the manic syncopated whirl of Bartók’s Third Etude in particular. Hyperion’s sound, like the playing, is less than ideally bold or resonant.