Stanislav Khristenko’s first-place victory in the 2013 Cleveland International Piano Competition generated well-deserved online chatter, much of it directed to his wide-ranging portfolio of live performances posted on YouTube. His recital debut consists of Fantasies ranging from tiny jewel to epic canvas.

Beginning with a familiar epic canvas, Schumann’s C major Fantasie, Khristenko organises the first movement’s overflowing font of ideas and mercurial mood-swings into a fluid, flexible entity. Varied voice-leadings and discreet tempo adjustments keep the central movement’s obsessive dotted rhythms alive and active, while few pianists have tossed off the coda’s horrifically difficult skips with such playful lightness and effortless precision. If Khristenko’s rubato in the lyrical finale arguably lacks the seasoned simplicity of Horowitz, Fiorentino or, among recent younger contenders, Andreas Haefliger, his gorgeous textural contouring conveys the impression that the leisurely arpeggiated left-hand writing and the long right-hand cantabiles emerge from separate instruments, dead-pianist style (and that’s a compliment).

Bruckner’s obscure three-minute Fantasie in G major consists of a modest chordal accompaniment supporting a single-note melody that quickly strays from the home key. Khristenko’s is the best of this unassuming little gem’s few commercial recordings. He milks the expressive possibilities of Zemlinsky’s early Op 9 Fantasien to more subjective and probing effect than in Silke Avenhaus’s relatively straighter Naxos traversal. Khristenko’s sparse pedalling and linear cogency in the Brahms Op 116 Pieces convince more than his tendency towards slow tempi and overly stretched-out, self-conscious phrasing, save for the energetic and direct D minor closer. Succinct, informative booklet-notes and balanced, realistic engineering.