What’s with this goth-outfitted pianist sporting unruly hair, seated at a concert grand in the forest, with a swan to her right, resting on the ground? I can’t imagine what Khatia Buniatishvili was thinking during her debut CD booklet cover photo shoot. Actually, the question is what was the art director drinking? Let’s not even talk about the pretentious symbolism run amok in the pianist’s rambling, inchoate annotations.

Instead, let’s zero in on her texturally and rhythmically vague A flat Liebesträume that opens this all-Liszt recital, where the tunes fall in and out of focus, in contrast to the shapely clarity distinguishing similarly introspective interpreters such as Leslie Howard and Jorge Bolet. Like many young virtuos os blessed (or cursed, as the case may be) with rapid-transit fingers, Buniatishvili tears through the Liszt Sonata’s fear-inducing octaves and chordal climaxes with the adrenaline and subtlety of a pit bull, but her antsy rhythmic sense, dynamic miscalculations and general lack of long-range planning wear thin after several hearings.

The First Mephisto Waltz’s faster-than- humanly-possible leaps and sweeping arpeggios must be travelling faster than the speed of sound, because you can barely ascertain the pitches (at least those that are not overpedalled). While Buniatishvili does convey a convincingly bleak and stern profile in La Lugubre Gondola No 2, I prefer the longer-lined animation and extended palette of tone colour that pianists as different as Michael Korstick and Arcadi Volodos serve up.

However, Buniatishvili is at her best in the Bach A minor BWV543 Prelude and Fugue transcription, where her playing becomes far more poised and controlled, without sacrificing one iota of imagination. The latter selection alone is worth the price of admission.