Vladimir Feltsman first came to prominence during the 1980s when, after a painfully delayed release from Russia, he arrived in New York to a tumultuous welcome. Concerts in the White House followed and his name was everywhere. Yet within a short period he stepped out of the limelight to enjoy a quieter, less dangerously exposed career, and he has remained a powerful if controversial figure in his adopted America. His repertoire is immense, extending from Bach to Messiaen, but with this issue he makes his own highly distinctive contribution to the Chopin year, along with near-simultaneous discs of the complete Nocturnes and the Barcarolle and Berceuse (see opposite).

Few of his records have been issued in the UK and listening to his latest offering makes you aware of just what we are missing. Powerful, declamatory and with a fresh and exhilarating expressive range, his Chopin is as honest as it is individual. Uncompromisingly rugged and intense, Feltsman makes few concessions to musical small-talk with his magnificently unsettling sense of Chopin’s stature and volatility. His First Ballade is hauntingly free and improvisatory, and if he shows an eagle eye and ear for detail it is never at the expense of line or coherence. Time and again he lifts Chopin out of the drawing room into a world of heroic drama. Deeply serious in the Polonaise-Fantasie’s profound speculation, he offers at one point in the Fourth Ballade some discreet ornamentation of his own, and creates an almost palpable tension with his prolonged pause before the final frenzied onslaught. Finely recorded and with impressive booklet-notes by the artist, this is among this year’s outstanding tributes to Chopin.