On paper, the 2019 GFA Competition winner Johan Smith’s recital programme looks unremarkable: a classic mix of old and new, familiar and unfamiliar, designed to showcase the guitarist’s technique and musicality. But if the playing in the first few bars of Bach’s BWV914 Toccata isn’t enough to dispel such preconceptions, by the time you reach the last bar of the closing work, Josquin Schwizgebel’s expansive Sables stellaires, you’ll understand just how sophisticated Smith’s approach is.

Not that this recital fails to showcase his abundant talent to its best advantage. So as one are player and instrument that you’re reminded of the ancients who mistook warriors on horseback for centaurs. Particularly admirable is Smith’s tone, unmarred by the arbitrary use of sul ponticello effects.

No: it’s more his ability to highlight similarities in form and texture – toccata, fugue, theme and variation, tremolo, arpeggio and so forth – among the pieces, while creating a satisfying arc. The tension increases from the Bach through the Ponce to peak at the Mertz before gradually dissipating (dramatic punctuations notwithstanding) through the Britten and the Schwizgebel. It’s as though our hero overcomes the intellectual challenges of the Bach Toccata and Ponce’s substantial Diferencias sobre la Folía de España y fuga, and celebrates with Mertz’s virtuoso though musically insubstantial Concertino before coming to rest in contemplation and sleep under the stars.

Smith’s flowing, lute-like Toccata nicely contrasts with arranger Stefano Grondona’s own détaché harpsichord-like approach on the latter’s own recording, while there’s a real tongue-in-cheek quality to the Mertz. Which is surely the only way to play show-off music that is as much fun for the listener as it is for the performer.