APR’s “The Russian Piano Tradition” offers an invaluable artist-led insight into the work of major pianists in Russia’s golden musical past, a time when communicative warmth, backed by both a formidable command and the richest tonal resource, took precedence over all else. For Moscow’s audiences the odd clinker or telescoped phrase mattered not a jot if the playing possessed the necessary degree of warmth and passion. And so it is with both Flier (1912‑77) and Igumnov (1873-1948), figures who may not have achieved the cult status of Richter and Gilels outside their native Russia but who exhibited all the qualities one expects from this grandest of Romantic traditions.

Flier’s generosity and poetic leeway in Chopin’s Second Sonata has little to do with present-day severity. His rubato is personal but never excessive (try the Scherzo’s central Trio) and the entire performance is exceptionally powerful and eloquent. He takes Rachmaninov’s G minor Prelude at a cracking pace and in the premiere recording of Kabalevsky’s 24 Preludes he captures all of the composer’s quirky changes of mood. Hear him in the frenetic whirlwind of No 14 (prestissimo possibile), in the festivamente of No 21, the playful dissonance of No 22 or the tank-like advance of No 24, and you will never doubt that you are in the presence of a master pianist.

Igumnov, like Schnabel and Myra Hess, was notoriously microphone-shy but his performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons makes you fall in love all over again with such an ultra-Slavonic reworking of essentially Schumannesque origins. His tempo for September’s fanfares may be more solid than exhilarating, but November’s joyous peal of sleigh bells and December’s seductive ballroom waltz are played as to the manner born. Igumnov’s Chopin, Scriabin and Schumann are scarcely less absorbing and if the recordings show their years, all is explained in Bryan Crimp’s exemplary and informative notes.