Michelangeli ranks among the grandest of all musical autocrats. And when his transcendent mastery is complemented by warmth, wit and charm, such additions are beyond price. Early in his career this “Prince of Pianists” (Alexander Kelly) possessed a Romantic as well as magisterial charisma, and listening to his performance of Bach’s Italian Concerto with its wealth of colour, nuance and resilience is to be reminded that a human heart beat beneath that legendary froideur. What sparkle, too, in Tomeoni’s G major Allegro and how he plays the arch-seducer to the manner born in Albéniz’s Malagueña (a mischievous alternative to Cortot’s vivacious enchantment). Granados’s Andaluza is heavily but irresistibly personalised, all fun and fancy-free; hardly for lovers of a more “correct” Spanish style, while Marescotti’s Fantasque (his set piece for the Geneva Piano Competition and a near relation of Abram Chasin’s Rush Hour in Hong Kong) is spun off with a virtuosity as life-enhancing as it is thrilling. Michelangeli’s reordering of the Brahms Paganini Variations is odd, but his performance remains of classic status (try the octave glissandi of Var 13 in Book 1 for an example of the pianist’s command). So, too, does his way with the Bach/Busoni Chaconne with his rapid tempi and lean, not-an-ounce-of-fat way with Busoni’s maestoso instruction. This is an issue that all lovers of great artistry will pounce on, particularly when so enticingly offered on Naxos’s bargain label. Special thanks, too, to Ward Marston’s fine remastering and to Donald Manildi – what would we do without his incomparable archive housed in the University of Maryland?