It is a sad anomaly that although so much undistinguished music is available on CD there is no complete recording by a great pianist of Schumann’s piano music. Few more enriching or romantic bodies of work exist, though Schumann’s cause is hardly helped by either Kotaro Fukuma or Susanne Grützmann, two young competition-winning pianists. Clinically speaking, Fukuma does all the right things, rarely, if ever, inviting dissent. And there, surely, lies the rub. Great or potentially great artistry is never like this, and all these performances are devoid of the higher virtues central to Schumann’s nature, to his interior and speculative magic. Fukuma is notably pedestrian in No 4 from the Novelletten, which will entice few onto the ballroom floor. Clear-sighted and objective, he does little to inflame or inspire.

Still, such proficiency provides a welcome alternative to Grützmann, whose cumbersome approach to fantasy and freedom hardly withstands scrutiny. Indeed, much of her playing is so lethargic that Schumann’s most dearly cherished fictions, Florestan (the man of action) and Eusebius (the man of dreams), become virtually interchangeable. True, there is a brief burst of life in the vivo of No 6 from the Davidsbündlertänze but elsewhere there is little beyond a nagging sense of self-consciousness and impediment. Papillons is similarly lacking in grace and fluency, and the awkward negotiation of one difficulty after another in the virtuoso Abegg Variations reminds you that the days when even great artists hesitated before committing their performances to record are long past.