For Bryan Crimp, who masterminds this invaluable “Russian Piano Tradition” series, Grigory Ginzburg (1904-61) was a “quiet pianist” who none the less offers a “masterclass in keyboard mastery”. This, finely put, offers a clue towards an expert, modest and musicianly rather than sensational player.

Hearing him in, for example, Chopin’s Third Impromptu you are made aware of a pianist who wore his character or originality lightly rather than heavily, a pianist of thoughts and dreams rather than superannuated virtuosity. He weaves his way with imperturbable ease though every decadent intricacy in the Strauss-Grünfeld Frühlingsstimmen, though even here you miss the voltage of a more highly tuned pianist. The Schulz-Evler Blue Danube paraphrase (shorn of an introduction once described as “sending fabulous spangles of sound spinning through the air”) is neat and ordered rather than swashbuckling, a reminder, perhaps, of Horowitz’s dictum, “without temperament, nothing”. Chopin’s A flat Polonaise, too, is very restrained (almost as if Ginzburg feared accusations of Lisztian excess), particularly when compared with, say, Rubinstein’s all-Polish heroic sweep and fire. His way with the A flat Impromptu misses Cortot’s enchanting freedom and abandon or the luxuriant charm and eloquence of Louis Kentner’s early 1928 Pearl disc, playing that is far more “on the wing”, to quote Bryan Crimp again. But there is brilliant Weber on offer and the Bach-Busoni transcription is given with genuine authority and, in the fugue, some richly imaginative voicing. The recordings, dating from 1948-53, are airless and restricted.