“Haydn and the Art of Variation” is Carole Cerasi’s title for her latest release; each of its four sonatas contains a variation movement, and the disc culminates predictably (but gloriously) with the famous F minor Variations. It makes an unusual programme, but then Cerasi is never routine. Particularly impressive here is the way she allows her 1790s Schantz piano (from the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath) to shape her interpretations; like many players approaching the instrument from the direction of the harpsichord, she appreciates its special qualities and realises them with a relish and originality that releases this wonderful music from the “warm-up” status it often endures in “traditional” piano circles. Quite simply, she restores its colour, expressiveness and grandeur.

Listen to the beautiful other world created by the una corda in Sonata No 40, or the big left-hand octaves in the powerful and eloquent No 42. Listen everywhere to the alertness and responsiveness with which she marks out the tiny details of dynamic and timing that make the music really sing and speak. And listen to the utter sensitivity of finger and mind she brings to No 19, for which she switches to a sweet-voiced (and expertly recorded) clavichord. All these attributes find apotheosis in an account of the F minor Variations which is both thought-provoking and affecting. The tearful haze in which the piece usually opens is replaced by a bolder approach, with limping paired quavers in the accompaniment suggesting a more physical level of pain. Only with the final reprise of the main theme does she turn to the una corda for emotional effect, now all the better for having been withheld, before unleashing an uncommonly stormy coda. This is fortepiano-playing of true distinction.