How do you like your Schumann Piano Concerto served? Heavyweight? Proto-Brahmsian? Or lightweight, quasi-Mendelssohn? If you prefer the former approach you may not appreciate Stewart Goodyear’s which, having thrown off the declamatory opening with a shrug, alights on that yearning opening theme as if it were Mendelssohn’s Capriccio brillant. With so many recordings of this evergreen work available (356 in one form or another are currently available, according to one website), it was enough to engage my attention. Different. Convincing. Interesting. And thus the first movement continued on its sparkling way while still mindful of Schumann’s initial affettuoso (affectionately, tenderly) when required. The finale, too, which in some hands can become relentless, sang joyously, helped by the pianist’s bubbling left hand, a juggler expertly keeping any number of balls in the air. All in all, Schumann with the varnish removed.

With such direct and playful music-making from both soloist and conductor, the Mendelssohn G minor promised to be equally exhilarating. And so it proved, the opening attacked with such verve and purpose that it had me armchair-conducting almost at once – always a good sign. The left-hand octave descent above rising right-hand semiquavers just before the first return of the main theme is properly thrilling. This is a highly commendable account of the concerto with some lovely moments en route, including the plangent string tuttis in the slow movement, and the pianist’s motoric left-hand drive (again) in the finale.

Whether or not the solo pieces composed by Stewart Goodyear will have such broad appeal, I leave to you. After the Schumann, a 19th-century love letter, we hear his Rhapsody, written in 2022 as a homage to the relationship between his friend Steven Law and Law’s late husband (‘the work is perhaps the most intimate I have ever written’). I detected a nod to the opening of the slow movement of Ravel’s G major Concerto – it’s in that vein. More tonally vinegar is Goodyear’s Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, which follows the Mendelssohn somewhat anachronistically. A properly virtuosic piece, it was commissioned for the 2021 Honens International Piano Competition, and ‘written’, writes Goodyear, ‘in the spirit of Mendelssohn but inspired by music of Sub-Saharan Africa’. It opens with ‘a 46 bar serenade of harmony and colour … before the Rondo takes off, the rhythm of 3/8 and 6/16 dominating the dance’. Both are premiere recordings.