Richard Danielpour’s Twelve Études may not expand virtuoso boundaries to the extent that Chopin, Liszt, Godowsky and Ligeti did in their times. Yet they are thoroughly idiomatic, well crafted and as appealing to the ear as they seem rewarding to pianist Stefano Greco.

Although arpeggiated figures are No 1’s focus, it’s the melodies that linger in your mind’s ear. No 2 features the right hand plucking carefully chosen and strategically placed pitches on the strings inside the piano. Both loud and soft full-sounding chords gently resonate throughout No 3, as if Mussorgsky and Messiaen were breaking bread. No 4 is less interesting, a fusion of Prokofievian bounce and those eight-tone scales Scriabin made famous and that Leon Kirchner employed ad infinitum.

No 5’s energetic octaves move in chromatic waves that congeal into tonal syncopation, channelling Leonard Bernstein’s ‘America’ from West Side Story. Perhaps the brooding étude on sixths and trills (No 6), the sensitive, lyrical No 9 for the left hand and an often gnarly ornamentation study (No 11) are the cycle’s most serious and substantial.

Danielpour’s 18-minute Piano Fantasy is essentially a free set of variations based on the final chorale of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. The composer sustains its time scale by deftly balancing turbulent virtuosity and achingly sparse episodes. The final variation is a fugue that commences in clear-cut tonality, only to grow more desperately dissonant as the music progessses; Busoni would have appreciated the composer’s game plan. Finally, Lullaby and Song without Words are piano transcriptions of interludes from Danielpour’s opera-in-progress The Grand Hotel Tartarus. The interludes may be purely instrumental, yet they embody heartfelt song. I second the composer’s enthusiasm over Greco’s masterfully internalised and excellently engineered interpretations. Highly recommended.