No sooner had I completed a Gramophone Collection on Iberia (6/12), finally celebrating the stature of four Spanish pianists in this incomparable if savagely daunting repertoire, than two more recordings arrive for consideration. First, admirably accommodated on a single CD, comes Eduardo Fernández, a pianist whose energy and enthusiasm are insufficiently complemented by poetic subtlety and finesse. His way with the opening ‘Evocación’ is heavily contrived and there is more than a touch of strenuousness in the treacherous pages just before the reflective coda of ‘Corpus Christi en Sevilla’. Fernández is not helped by a recording so close that it reminds one of early CDs that made you long for the far-off days of black discs. Time and again there is a lack of richness and fullness in music that outwardly cries out for an ultimate opulence (the extravagant dynamics ranging from quadruple piano to quadruple forte). Is the opening of ‘El Albaicín’ triple piano as marked; and is Fernández’s detachment true to the instruction doux et reveur at the start of ‘Jerez’?

For a greater sense of engagement and less of a plethora of notes you will have to look elsewhere, and most notably to Kotaro Fukuma, whose two-disc album is a wonder of impeccable technique and musicianship. Riding high with the finest of all recordings, Fukuma’s approach is of a truly extraordinary novelty in the sense that emotion – often raging emotion – is reflected with a subtlety that is as haunting and evocative as you would wish. Again, how often have you heard a young Japanese pianist play with such delicacy and opalescent coloration? How remarkable, too, to hear every one of Albéniz’s teeming notes given with such a luminous and limpid sense of texture that allows for every melodic strand to stand out from its too often engulfing surround. Iberia given with a near-Mozartian clarity and grace may sound like a contradiction in terms but Fukuma opens your ears to an unforgettable alternative to received Spanish wisdom. He is finely recorded and we must hope for many further discs from an artist of such rare musical enterprise and quality.