So the journey ends. A project that began back in 1994 has finally reached its conclusion with this sixth volume. Indeed, the opening number, the virtuoso ‘La fileuse’, was also the first item on Vol 1 of the projected complete works for ASV, a series that was curtailed by the label’s demise.

Nicholas Walker’s dedication to the cause and determination to see it through demands both our admiration and respect. It is a tremendous achievement – and the final tranche is no less full of pianistic goodies than its predecessors. Three premiere recordings are included: the comical Elegy on the Death of a Mosquito (1855) and La danse de sorcières (1856), both completed by Walker, and his own mammoth (21'10") transcription of Tamara, Balakirev’s great orchestral tone poem, a tour de force prompted by Walker’s discovery that the composer often used to play it to his friends. ‘I have set out to recreate it’, writes Walker, ‘in pianistic textures redolent of Balakirev’s own piano style.’

Elsewhere we have the ‘idyll-étude’ Au jardin, dedicated to Adolf von Henselt, which Walker feels is ‘one of the most beautiful pieces ever written for piano, revealing Balakirev at his best’. It’s hard to disagree. There’s the Polka in F sharp major (Balakirev’s first published work from 1859), transcriptions of Glinka songs, the exhilarating Toccata in C sharp minor and, mischievously placed last, what is the composer’s best-known work by far. Islamey is as much a musical as a technical challenge, a masterpiece that is rather more than a mere virtuoso finger-fest. The way in which Walker maintains its structure while observing all Balakirev’s myriad agogic and dynamic markings, with rits, ralls and a tempos in almost every bar, is the result of many years’ familiarity. Tiny details like playing the low D flats at the start of the 6/8 Andantino espressivo section as strict quavers is a case in point (most pianists ignore the succeeding two quaver rests). Walker storms home in the grandest manner, providing a fitting and exhilarating end to his odyssey.