Ernest Bloch is of course renowned for his orchestral and chamber music, and his small output for solo piano sits at the periphery of his oeuvre. The music on this disc was written in the early 1920s, except for the two most significant works, the Piano Sonata (1935) and Visions and Prophecies (1940). The latter work is a recomposition of his earlier Voice in the Wilderness, for orchestra with cello obbligato, and alternates dramatic movements that evoke the Old Testament prophets with calmer movements signifying the visions. Enfantines is a set of 10 short pieces for children, while Five Sketches in Sepia are, despite the title, marvellously colourful works that evoke Debussy and Scriabin. Certainly the works from the early 1920s - with their mixture of oriental exoticism and distinctive melodic patterns - are appealing in their thematic fecundity and imaginative use of keyboard texture. The most significant work, however, is the Piano Sonata, whose idiom is more hard-edged and dissonant, without losing the composer's trademark melodic orientalism.

Margaret Fingerhut is a sensitive advocate, and is especially convincing in the more exotic miniatures, particularly the Five Sketches in Sepia. She also captures the appealing innocence and simplicity of Enfantines with loving care (try the concluding 'Dream', track 23). There is, however, occasionally an elusive factor missing that would lift the music off the page, most noticeably in the larger-scale structures such as the Piano Sonata where a greater dramatic flair would drive the narrative more urgently, excitedly forward. The close, rather unyielding recording doesn't help her cause, but Fingerhut seems happiest when able to lavish care over less demanding miniatures, which bring out her feeling for colour and melodic shape at softer dynamics.