Schumann's Carnaval and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition are classics of the repertoire, needing performances of high calibre to justify their presence on disc. From Valentina Igoshina, a prize-winning young Russian pianist, the scales tip heavily in favour of her Mussorgsky, where her musicianship rarely disintegrates into the sort of idiosyncrasy that mars her Schumann. Gratifyingly straightforward though not without personal touches (she is freely expressive to an unusual degree in “Il vecchio castello”), she is generally equal to Mussorgsky's magisterial demands. Alas, in Carnaval you are left wishing that she would allow Schumann his own voice. In “Estrella” her rubato is more convulsive than natural and “Reconnaissance” is heavy-handed rather than a gentle pianissimo patter. More generally, there is too much coaxing and pushing against the grain, a sense of a pianist determined to leave her mark on music which for all its vividness and whimsy needs a more natural flow, a less contrived projection. In the long term neither performance is equal to the finest available, though there is compensation in Warner Classics' fine sound, the artist's own charmingly written appreciation and four glamorous photographs.