The chief interest of this Brahms recital lies in Alexander Melnikov’s use of an 1875 Bösendorfer instrument, which he defends in his accompanying notes. There he charts the early domination of the American Steinway over the long-cherished Viennese Bösendorfer, with a neat sideswipe at America’s marketing strategies which “have not changed much in the last 150 years”. For him, his chosen instrument is notable for “the beauty and nobility of its sound”, though with the modest disclaimer that ultimate notions of “correctness” or authenticity are negated by changing cultural and aesthetic contexts. Certainly the sound, fascinating as it is, takes some getting used to, even when it does nothing to qualify one’s response to Melnikov’s ardent and magisterial performances.

These are of an all-Russian authority, with a thunder and intense virtuosity that often took me back to the playing of the young and titanic Gilels. The sonatas are programmed in reverse order since the Second was composed before the First, and with the early, volatile and Chopin-influenced B flat minor Scherzo in between. The F sharp minor Sonata blazes with the youthful genius that so astonished Robert and Clara Schumann, and with a fearless disregard for academic niceties, notably in the Scherzo’s bridge passage leading back to the principal idea and in the whole of the finale. And here Melnikov is every inch the klavier-tiger, taking every awkward difficulty by storm yet creating an unforgettable romantic glow in the coda of the C major Sonata’s Andante. The early Scherzo, too, is ignited with unfaltering mastery, making this an exceptional disc. Lovers of modern instruments will, however, return to Julius Katchen’s glamorous and swashbuckling Brahms on Decca, and look ahead to possible new recordings by Brahmsians of the stature of Nicholas Angelich and Jonathan Plowright.