The British pianist Sarah Beth Briggs bookends her recital with Schumann, launching the disc with Papillons and ending with Kinderszenen. Though she is not blessed with the most beautiful of Steinways, with a tendency for harshness in its upper register, she clearly has affection for everything she plays. The problem is that in the slower music that can become unsubtly realised – the very opening of Papillons is too deliberate, as is Kinderszenen’s ‘Pleading Child’ and ‘Träumerei’. In ‘A Curious Story’ she finds none of the glee of, say, Pires, sounding curiously underpowered. Happily, things liven up in the subsequent game of ‘Blind Man’s Buff’. But her Knight has a much safer time on his hobby horse than Hamelin’s (who, one hopes, was equipped with a crash helmet, so recklessly fast is it, though unquestionably thrilling). And that sense of playing it safe also makes the faster moments in Papillons somewhat tame – the fortissimo octaves in No 8, for instance, sound overly laboured, with an over-reliance on rubato in the phrases that follow. No 10, marked Vivo, is also terribly timid (just a few moments spent with Hamelin are altogether more compelling). Things improve slightly in the finale of Papillons but it’s really too little, too late.

In between the Schumann comes late Brahms. The opening of Op 117 is thoughtfully done but you don’t need to turn to Volodos to realise that Briggs doesn’t really sing a line – Jonathan Plowright takes a slightly faster tempo and immediately sounds more comfortable. I do like the quiet unease that Briggs finds in the second of the set, and the third starts promisingly, though in the high-lying moments of the middle section she is hampered by that uningratiating piano sound. And that also afflicts Op 118 No 2, which sounds thin-toned compared with Plowright and co.