Roman Rabinovich follows up his earlier volume of Haydn’s piano sonatas (2/19) with this second instalment, once again responding with personality and imagination to Haydn’s seemingly limitless invention. As before, early and later works are intermixed in the programme, making clear how the import of what Haydn had to say in these sonatas deepened as parallel developments in his compositional language and technique enabled him to say it with so much more power and subtlety. The terser earlier works are divertimento-like creations – and indeed are often thus designated – while later works such as the Sonatas in A flat (HobXVI:43) or C (No 48), although of similar outward dimensions, pack so much more into their arguments.

Rabinovich, Tashkent-born, Israel- and New York-trained, never takes the score at face value. He uses the full range of dynamics and voicings available from his Steinway, embellishing freely (and not only in reprises) and playing Haydn at his own game. You almost hear him chuckling along with Haydn’s cheekiness as he goes. The Baroque-ish figurations of the slow movements of Sonatas Nos 31 or 37 retain their austerity and contrast with the high spirits of their respective finales, while Rabinovich finds an attractively veiled tone for the Adagio of the four-movement Sonata No 6 in G.

The recording team have moved for this volume from New York to the Tippet Rise Art Center, situated in the enticing-sounding Fishtail, Montana. Rabinovich is finely recorded within a natural acoustic that presents his performances in a ideal light. It’s quite a journey through Haydn’s piano sonatas, and as his cycle unfolds, it seems as if Rabinovich is going to be as individual a guide as the likes of Bavouzet and Hamelin in their recent surveys and selections.