Yundi first came to public attention in 2000 when, as simple Yundi Li, he became the youngest-ever winner of the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. The assumption since then has been that ipso facto he is a great Chopin player – and, indeed, many of his subsequent recordings of the composer have much to commend them. One has to admire the exceptional technical command and accuracy, prerequisites of success in the competitive Chinese system of musical education, but too often in the four Ballades presented here that is all you get.

Revealingly, in the accompanying booklet Yundi is keen to ‘dismiss any notion of sentimentality, stressing the need for a Chopin pianist to avoid being either mannered or emphatic’. This is a perfectly tenable view of the composer but one that I do not share. It is too narrow, too prescriptive. The greatest Chopin players have the (unteachable?) ability to combine what used to be termed masculine and feminine aspects of the composer, and Yundi’s way with the Ballades suggests an asexual version of him, where intimacy is viewed objectively, passion is manufactured and kept under control. Charm comes at a premium.

There are moments when Yundi can be confiding and even genial – the opening of the Second Ballade, for instance, the Berceuse and the final Mazurka from the Op 17 set – and, to be fair, this is a disc with which I felt more comfortable the longer it went on. The often clouded passagework of the Fourth Ballade’s final pages is lucidly articulated by minimal use of the sustaining pedal. ‘Powerful playing comes from the fingers, not the feet,’ says Yundi. ‘For me, the pedal is principally for refining the colour.’

Overall, though, this is not the kind of Chopin-playing I warm to. I daresay Yundi’s millions of fans worldwide will not be disappointed but I wonder how many will have listened to Cortot, Moiseiwitsch, Cherkassky, Rubinstein, Lipatti and other great pianists in this repertoire, artists who became known by a single name on merit – not from some marketing strategy.