Looking back through the Gramophone archive, I see that this gifted Italian pianist (b1987) has been appearing on and off in these pages for the past decade. She has ranged far and wide on disc, from Haydn and Rachmaninov to Stockhausen (whose music she studied with him) and the contemporary French composer Karol Beffa. Somehow, she has thus far escaped my attention.

My impression after a first hearing was rather like a Chinese meal: well prepared, delicious and filling – yet half an hour later you’re hungry again. I was less inclined to carp after a second hearing. It is, after all, a cannily chosen, well-balanced selection (recorded mid-pandemic, incidentally, in Prato, Tuscany). Mosell is blessed with a fantastic mechanical fluency – most pianists would give their eye teeth for fingers like hers – and tonally alluring in the less virtuoso numbers such as Thalberg’s transcription of ‘Casta diva’ (the second time this has come my way recently) and – a first for me – in Paul Wittgenstein’s dainty arrangement for left hand alone of the Sailors’ Chorus from Madama Butterfly.

Anyone coming to these transcriptions for the first time could not help but be impressed. And rightly so. It is when you compare these performances with certain others that you realise how much more there is to be had musically. Take either of Marc-André Hamelin’s recordings of the Réminiscences de Norma (Music & Arts, 1992; Hyperion, 10/20), with their super-refined passagework and variety of touch and tone, performances that have you on the edge of your seat and come to conclusions that send shivers up the spine. The keyboard simply roars. Then there’s Jorge Bolet in the mighty Lucia di Lammermoor transcription (Marston, 7/15), bringing a depth and majesty that so far elude the talented Mosell. And she comes off a spirited but definite second best to Jean-Yves Thibaudet in the Rigoletto Paraphrase (Decca, 2/94), whose jeu perlé runs above the main theme are staggeringly accomplished before dispatching the final blaze of octaves with thrilling drama.