For his Orchid Classics debut, Ashley Wass puts together a mixed programme of works that are either by Bach or are inspired by Bach on a certain level. Superficially, at least, the respective Passacaglia and Fugue movements from Barber’s Sonata relate to Bach, as do the combative counterpoint of Beethoven’s Op 126 Bagatelles and Berg’s Sonata. The latter receives an impassioned, large-scale and cogently shaped performance that holds its own with the best, despite some blurring at the climaxes (that’s the recorded resonance, not Wass’s pedalling!). If the more introspective and lyrical Beethoven Bagatelles sound comparatively studied next to, say, Schnabel’s conversational ease or Kovacevich’s coiled intensity, the faster movements are appropriately charged and articulated to the nines. Busoni’s beautiful transcription of Bach’s chorale prelude Ich ruf’ zu dir sounds reticent against the more shapely Vladimir Horowitz and Edwin Fischer paradigms. Similarly, I prefer Wolf Harden’s faster tempi and wider variety of articulation in the Busoni Fantasia.

However, Wass is right at home in the Barber. He uses the aforementioned Passacaglia as an anchor from which the movement’s lyrical writing seems to play by itself. Note Wass’s forceful, authoritative work in the Allegro energico and crisply delineated Fugue, although his slightly bland Scherzo yields to the octogenarian Earl Wild’s amazingly supple and pointed fingerwork. Wass’s school chum Ron Abramski joins in for two simple and straightforward Bach duet transcriptions by Kurtág that provide this programme’s bookends.