The third volume in Barry Douglas’s Brahms cycle once again suggests carefully considered and imaginative programme-planning rather than following a strict chronology. It is also surely true that his playing has advanced into a different realm since his early competition-winning days. ‘God’s curse on pianists’ (Douglas) necessitated a retreat and a process of recovery from what was at the time a limelight bordering on the lurid. And today I can only wonder at his Brahms, which is superbly masterful in both technique and musicianship (an indissoluble blend). There is no trace of distortion or egocentricity as in the theatricality that sometimes mars Julius Katchen’s celebrated Brahms cycle. Instead you hear an unfaltering commitment to exclusively musical matters and the results are as moving as they are exemplary.

In the Waltzes, Douglas acknowledges grace and introspection as well as ebullience, is delightfully skittish in No 6 and is hauntingly alive to the gentle solace of No 15. And if there is a surprising touch of assertiveness in the Op 119 No 1 Intermezzo (it is marked piano) rather than a more customary bittersweet resignation, the focus is so unfailingly musical that you are compelled to think again and reconsider. Again, Douglas is more pensive than dancing or kaleidoscopic (Curzon or Rubinstein) in the C major Intermezzo from the same set but his way of opting for more substance than shadows is wholly convincing. His virtuosity is at full throttle in the F sharp minor Sonata, yet nothing is stretched or over-reached. Even in the unruly finale he shows a command that places every extravagant gesture in a clear perspective. Outstandingly recorded and presented, this is a fine addition to Brahms, to music which in such hands leaves you ‘a different person’.