Opening with two of Mozart’s solo masterpieces, the ear is welcomed into an intimate, pellucid sound world with a sophisticated grading of dynamics. Hough plays with what used to be called “a quiet hand”, particularly effective in the first movement of the B flat major Sonata in which he finds an unexpected melancholy amid the music’s basically optimistic character.

After the dramatic second (earlier) C minor Fantasia completed by Stadler, and Cramer’s attractive Etude, Op 103 No 6, we seem to be listening to a different pianist who now relishes the delicate, perfumed harmonies of Friedman’s Menuetto transcription. In the same vein, but imbued with witty Poulencian devices, Hough the pianist-composer reminds us how important charm is to the pianist’s arsenal. Again, the pianist changes. This time we hear a barn-storming virtuoso in the Liszt-Busoni Fantasy on “Non più andrai” and “Voi che sapete” from The Marriage of Figaro. More fragmentary than the better-known Don Giovanni Fantasy and not quite as effective, it nevertheless provides a hair-raising bravura display that deserves to be heard more often. At least, when played like this.