A highlight is the outwardly simple Op 49 No 2, beloved of piano students everywhere, to which Biss gives as much consideration as any of the more overtly demanding works. The first movement combines Mozartian grace with a bubbling excitement and he subtly varies pedalling and touch in the exposition repeat. Alongside him, Richard Goode sounds a tad staid. In the minuet second movement, Biss is again alive to every detail, to beguiling effect.

He launches the disc with another high-spirited work, Op 2 No 2. Biss’s booklet notes are, as ever, thoughtful and full of insight, and his description of this sonata’s slow movement as ‘not a dialogue with the universe, but a thanksgiving’ is fully borne out by his persuasive interpretation. However, it is in the other movements that doubts creep in, the opening Allegro lacking the quiet mischief of Bavouzet or the anarchic high jinks of Brendel. Biss’s playing is unfailingly honed – just sample the Scherzo. But then turn to Bavouzet, who begins almost inaudibly and is unrivalled in sheer responsiveness. In the finale Biss emphasises the grazioso marking but again I prefer the greater playfulness of Bavouzet and Brendel.

The very different emotional world of the Tempest is also only partially conveyed. Its slow movement is carefully shaded and coloured but it doesn’t have the air of mystery that Kovacevich conjures in those opening bars, while Goode captures its otherworldliness thanks to a daringly spacious tempo. And Goode is supreme in his mix of unease and desperation in the finale. Biss, pedalling to quite different effect, creates an altogether more haloed aura.

The last work on the disc, Op 109, is a different matter again and is particularly fine. The pacing is unfailingly astute, the sense of rhapsody in the first movement beautifully caught, the Prestissimo full of energy and purpose (though without the knife-edge impulsiveness of Annie Fischer), while the theme of the variation-form finale unfolds with delicate songfulness. I like very much the way the fugal fifth variation has power without edginess and the moments before the final reprise of the theme itself are beautifully coloured, even if they don’t quite have the magical raptness of Goode. Biss is beautifully recorded too.