This is a well-chosen programme usefully representing Copland’s three major piano works, although there might have been a case for including the fine late piece called Night Thoughts rather than the immature student Passacaglia written for Boulanger and published in Paris. This, however, is a significant step forward from the even earlier Sonata in G, an unpublished academic exercise premièred by Ramon Salvatore in 1995 and recorded. Raymond Clarke’s thoughtful CD booklet notes rightly make the connection between the sectional construction of the Passacaglia and the Piano Variations eight years later.

We need a definitive recording of the Piano Fantasy and Clarke is exactly the kind of performer to deliver it. Unfortunately he is let down by the metallic quality of the piano in the middle register and the tuning keeps slipping after the more strident passages. Clarke explains that Copland’s pianism does require some hard hitting but it doesn’t need to sound like this.

As usual all Clarke’s interpretations are scrupulous. Occasionally Copland’s gentler markings – such as ‘with sentiment’ in the first movement of the Sonata – come across as slightly insensitive. But the slow music in the last movement achieves a magical atmosphere in response to the music’s sustained immobility. However, the recording fails to contain the loud passages in the middle.

In the Fantasy, as elsewhere, Clarke is in complete command of the passagework in this utterly uncompromising half-hour epic, whereas Salvatore, although better recorded, is casual about the note values of the declamatory opening. Overall this release is a disappointment. First-class playing; second-class piano.