In the September 2004 issue, Bryce Morrison gave an enthusiastic welcome to Martin Jones’s complete Mompou cycle. It is a pleasure to give an equally hearty three cheers to another complete cycle from the same pianist. When so few ‘completes’ are ever wholly satisfying in the hands of a single artist, the indefatigable Jones proves an exception. Why his ‘scrupulously sensitive but self-effacing artistry’ (BM) is not more widely acclaimed is baffling. It was Jones’s bad luck that, though this set was due for release in 2001, it coincided with that period when Nimbus stopped issuing. It crept back into circulation at the end of 2004 without the fanfare it deserves.

The first two discs have those extraordinary works composed between 1908 and 1910 that put the infant Korngold into the Mozart-Mendelssohn prodigy class – the first two piano sonatas, Don Quixote, the ballet-pantomime Der Schneemann, Was der Wald erzählt, and seven Märchenbilder. The final ‘Epilog’ contains one of Korngold’s most beautiful melodies and here Jones captures the weltschmerz of the composer’s own treasurable 1951 recording (nla).

The Piano Trio in D major, completed just before Korngold’s 13th birthday, is played in the composer’s previously unrecorded four-hand version. In this and the 1911 Schauspiel Overture (arranged by Korngold’s friend Ferdinand Rebay), Jones is joined by Richard McMahon. Written in language of pre-nascent maturity that was to develop little over the composer’s lifetime, these pieces constitute one of Western music’s more noteworthy miracles.

These four well-filled discs are completed by Rebay’s substantial (18’31”) Grand Fantasy on themes from Die tote Stadt, and Korngold’s fantasy on Johann Strauss themes – collectors of Blue Danube variations need not hesitate! Stylish, lovingly prepared, classily played and with an excellent 10-page booklet from Korngold’s biographer Brendan G Carroll, I cannot praise too highly this valuable addition to the catalogue