Ronald Stevenson’s ‘The Transcendental Tradition’ is transcendental in more than one sense. The title was first proposed by Peter Pears for arrangements which extend or go beyond the original sources, altering and elaborating rather than improving their essential nature. Then, as you listen to Stevenson, you are made aware that powerful musicianship, candour and revelation are antithetical to the surface sheen of performances groomed for the exam room or the competition circuit.

All Stevenson’s readings glow with an inner warmth, a musical breathing that has little to do with stereotypical rubato and, above all,a desire to speak and communicate with all the richness and fullness of his being. His way with Du bist die Ruh reminds youthat Liszt paid tribute to the ‘most poeticof all composers’. Again, his towering performance of the Bach-Busoni Chaconne is virtuosic in the only sense that matters – making you forget more outwardly expert rivals and listen intently to his individual and absorbing voice.

His Chopin-Godowsky is included because it is an audacious musical, rather than merely intricate, adventure, and you only have to listen to Stevenson in Percy Grainger’s arrangement of Gershwin’s The Man I Love to hear a musician as alert to whispered confidences as to bold declamation.

Again, Stevenson’s own compositions, while influenced by his father-figure, Busoni, achieve a gritty but wholly personal idiom. Everything in this well recorded recital makes you think again and re-evaluate the art of transcription, as well as the art and essence of great music-making.