Francine Kay commences this smartly programmed recital of Czech music with a reading of Janáček’s two-movement Sonata that is both detailed and impassioned. In the opening ‘Předtucha’ (‘Foreboding’), unison melodies marked ppp convey a ghostly, other-worldly effect that contrasts with the intensity of Kay’s whirling climactic passages. The pianist pays more attention than most to the second movement’s rumbling left-hand accompaniment, which emerges as an effectively unsettling commentary on the prevailing main theme.

The ardent lyricism of Suk’s ‘Yearning’ provides a bridge into three of Dvořák’s Humoresques, Op 101. Given Kay’s idiomatic and imaginative treatments, I’m sorry there wasn’t room for the entire set; her gaunt and angular way with No 7 strips decades of slurpy sentiment (or should I say sediment?) from this hackneyed work.

The centrepiece of Kay’s recital is Suk’s Things Lived and Dreamt, an inspired cycle of 10 pieces that’s never received its due as part of the so-called standard repertoire. Kay’s characterful interpretations easily stand their ground alongside the classic Pavel Štěpán set from the 1970s (Supraphon, 2/06) and Karl-Andreas Kolly’s more recent edition (MDG). Note her sardonic pointing of No 1’s polka rhythms, No 2’s winged delicacy or her impressive control of No 3’s repeated-note inner voices. She revels in No 6’s rhythmic displacements and No 14’s witty embellishments; the latter piece might be described as a Czech rag. To my ears, the extraordinary final piece’s sparse left-hand writing and rhapsodic right-hand lines somehow foreshadow Messiaen. Here, however, I prefer the breadth and feeling of desolation of Kolly’s recording over Kay’s faster, cooler and more forthright traversal.

Kay’s perceptive performances of Vítězslava Kaprálová’s four April Preludes complement those included on Giorgio Koukl’s survey of this tragically short-lived composer’s complete piano music (Grand Piano). For example, the third piece, marked Andante semplice, is more yielding and vulnerable in Kay’s hands alongside Koukl’s faster fluidity. In the Vivo No 4, Koukl gives emphatic weight to the bass lines, whereas Kay’s lighter, crisper pianism is more treble-orientated. Her clipped phrases and stinging accents light sparks under Smetana’s A minor Polka, in contrast to Jitka Čechová’s warmer geniality or Emil Gilels’s heavier tread. The recording captures Kay’s multi-hued sonority, albeit without the full-bodied presence of her 1999 French recital on Analekta. In all, a release that represents compelling programme-building, musicianship and pianism all rolled into one attractive and highly recommendable package.