Critical reaction in these pages to Peter Donohoe’s solo Mozart has been mixed. David Threasher enjoyed Vols 1 and 2, concluding that ‘much of this repertoire remains obstinately underrated, so it’s very much to our benefit that a pianist of his personality and musicianship has chosen to engage with it with such seriousness of purpose’. Jed Distler concurred when he reviewed Vol 3, but Harriet Smith was a dissenting voice when she covered Vol 4.

My reactions to Vol 5 in the series tend to echo DT and JD rather than HS, principally because the programme includes my favourite Mozart piano sonata, No 15 in F major, with its breathtaking B flat major Andante middle movement. In the opening Allegro Donohoe’s way with swirling running passages is both elegant and playful, whereas elsewhere he toys with timing and dynamics so as to maximise the music’s acute sense of colour. In the Andante my ‘go-to’ recording has for years been Mitsuko Uchida, the sort of deeply poetic Mozart-playing that arrives for our delectation only once, maybe twice, in a generation. Donohoe lays his cards on the table less adoringly than does Uchida: his is a plain-speaking eloquence, just as valid in its way, and maybe more durable in the long term, but that special Uchida magic just won’t quit my musical memory. Elisabeth Leonskaja’s dignified but soulful reading falls some way between the two. The finale (a stand-alone piece composed by Mozart in 1786) is, in Donohoe’s hands (as in those of his quoted rivals), a patient allegretto, as it should be.

The remaining two sonatas, K281 and K333, again subscribe to Donohoe’s pleasing brand of interpretative directness, playing that is at once sensitive and unfussy. K281’s aria-like Andante amoroso comes off especially well, though K333’s finale, which could easily have emanated from one of the mature piano concertos, is also delightfully played. Potential takers who fancy a punt need not fear that Mozart and Donohoe are ever at loggerheads. The unforced brilliance of his playing falls very happily on the ear (the piano used is a Bechstein D282 Grand) and the sound is excellent, so thanks too are due to producer Siva Oke and engineer Paul Arden-Taylor. Recommended with confidence.