I heard Magda Tagliaferro only once: she played at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park at the conclusion of the New York Gay Pride March in the mid-1970s. Young as I was, she seemed ancient, and we wondered who had prevailed upon this elegantly attired little lady to play with orchestra for what was, just a few years after Stonewall, still a fiercely militant and highly politicised event. But when she began to play the Chopin Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise brilliante, curiosity turned into amazement as she effortlessly commanded an outdoor audience numbering in the thousands.

Born in 1893 near Rio de Janeiro to French parents, Tagliaferro was taken to Paris at 13, where she joined Marmontel’s class at the Conservatoire. It was her subsequent work with Cortot, however, that she considered lastingly influential. APR’s new release presents all of Tagliaferro’s 78rpm solo and concerto recordings, plus a handful of chamber works, in Ward Marston’s excellent transfers and with elegant and informative booklet notes by Charles Timbrell. These recordings, made between 1928 and 1938, with a single post-war outlier from 1954, reveal a decisive musical sensibility of immense authority, imagination and charm, bolstered by an extraordinarily versatile technique.

Given Tagliaferro’s close personal associations with Gabriel Fauré and Reynaldo Hahn, her interpretations of their music are of particular interest. Her approach to the Fauré Ballade is all shapely simplicity, with beautifully sculpted phrases and considerable dynamic subtlety. The contrasts of the Second and Third Impromptus are subtly captured, their idiosyncrasies lovingly portrayed with complete naturalness. Hahn’s Piano Concerto, dedicated to Tagliaferro and here conducted by the composer, is played with great freedom and authority, making one wonder why this work hasn’t been taken up by more pianists. Though Hahn’s C major Sonatine, a tongue-in-cheek Scarlatti parody, is a less compelling piece, Tagliaferro brings it seriousness and gusto. There are also Fauré and Hahn works for violin and piano with Denise Soriano from early in the violinist’s career.

A complete Debussy Pour le piano is here, the Prélude and Sarabande from 1930 and the Toccata, along with ‘Jardins sous la pluie’, recorded in 1932, in robust performances both original and compelling. Tagliaferro’s Mendelssohn, including a brilliant F major Étude, is forthright and lyrical. Her Chopin is lean, charming and very French, with a Fantaisie-impromptu that comes very close to profundity. But of her performances of the early Romantics, it is her personal, atmospheric Schumann that I find most impressive. The Faschingsschwank aus Wien, for all its abandon, is richly detailed and powerful, while the exquisite F sharp major Romance is as heartfelt as anyone might wish.

The Spanish school is represented by two evocative pieces of Mompou and a deliciously sensual Granados Rondalla aragonesa. When it comes to Albéniz’s ‘Seguidillas’ (Cantos de España) and ‘Sevilla’ (Suite española), you’re left wishing she had recorded more. Though unmistakably of its historical moment, Tagliaferro’s Mozart is intelligent, texturally crystalline and rhythmically pert, with a beautifully balanced cantabile prevalent throughout. No occasion for drama is neglected in the Coronation Concerto, K537, in spite of a lacklustre orchestral accompaniment.

The only post-war recording, and the coup de maître of the set, is a bravura account of Saint-Saëns’s Egyptian Concerto with Fournet and the Orchestre Lamoureux from 1954. Each movement is vividly characterised and the whole approached with a seriousness presaging some of the piece’s more recent champions, such as Engerer and Chamayou.

This well-rounded set argues for a more prominent position among 20th-century pianists than Tagliaferro has generally been accorded in the anglophone literature. It also affords the pleasure of hearing an artist whose every gesture seems deeply considered in performances that nevertheless exude spontaneity and the joy of making music.