Like its predecessor (8/18), the second volume of Marston’s ‘Landmarks’ series teems with revelations and curios alike. It begins with an experimental 1929 broadcast that preserves the legendary Liszt pupil Moriz Rosenthal in his mentor’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody, followed by the pianist’s (relatively) familiar 1931 studio shellac recording as a frame of reference. While the latter is unfettered and freewheeling by today’s standards, it’s got nothing on the broadcast, where Rosenthal stretches the opening section to King Kong dimensions, replete with added runs and filled-in octaves. The Friska abounds with pounded-out clusters that sound like Ervin Nyiregyházi in heat, while Rosenthal simply goes nuts in the cadenza. This is the most insane Second Rhapsody I’ve ever heard, and I wouldn’t want it any other way!

Three solos from a 1953 concert reveal Percy Grainger’s technique in fine estate, with his projection and full-bodied tone intact. In addition to Grainger’s own Scotch Strathspey and Reel (which he otherwise did not record), we have renditions of the Bach/Tausig Toccata and Fugue, BWV565, and Londonderry Air that are even more impassioned than the pianist’s earlier studio traversals. For truly ravishing tone, however, a series of 78s with Federico Mompou in his own works gives a much better idea of his sound world than his LP recordings suggest.

I don’t find Ignacy Friedman’s rare 1933 Chopin Op 53 Polonaise as ‘buttoned-up’ as Gregor Benko’s excellent annotations claim, except when measured alongside the pianist’s familiar and decidedly ‘unbuttoned’ 1927 recording. It’s followed by a sonically poor home recording of a 1933 Tokyo broadcast that resists casual listening. But if you persist, you’ll notice a freer, more fanciful Friedman than on his studio versions of the Chopin ‘Raindrop’ Prelude, B flat Mazurka, Op 7 No 1, and B flat Polonaise, along with a rapid-transit Mendelssohn ‘Spinning Song’ new to his discography.

Perhaps Gottschalk’s Caprice is the strongest of Frank La Forge’s rather ordinary 1912 RCA solo sides, although Rosita Renard’s 1930 Debussy ‘Feux d’artifice’ more than lives up to the work’s descriptive title. Prior to this collection’s incisive 1945 broadcast of Lyapunov’s ‘Lezghinka’ I’d never heard before of Reah Sadowsky (1915-2012). In a live 1955 Tchaikovsky First Concerto, Mark Hambourg’s free-spirited temperament is heard to far better advantage and with superior orchestral support from Malcolm Sargent than in the pianist’s 1926 commercial HMV 78s. There are typically Hambourgian slapdash moments, yet some of his chance-taking really succeeds (his no-holds-barred octaves), not to mention the underlying energy and mobility in lyrical passages.

Early-instrument pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch’s 1933 period-piano reading of the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata’s Adagio may have been the first on disc to take the composer’s controversial long pedal indications on faith. I often find Etelka Freund’s artistic pedigree more interesting than her surviving post-war broadcasts and commercial discs, including the 1951 Beethoven Appassionata offered here; try to track down instead a two-CD Pearl release produced by Allan Evans featuring Freund’s superb Brahms Sonata No 3, Op 5. Lastly, we hear Grace Castagnetta take four notes suggested by audience members and use them as the basis for a charming improvisation. In sum, a self-recommending feast for hardcore piano mavens who think they’ve heard everything.