It seems everything needs a theme these days, so here we have from Alexander Lonquich Schubert’s last piano works in a set called ‘Schubert 1828’. The pianist’s notes continue this notion with headings such as ‘Sonata in A major, D959: towards a vernal finale’. All of which is well and good but the million-dollar question is whether the playing stands out.

The Three Pieces, D946, are raw, urgent – qualities that are emphasised by Lonquich’s fingery style of performing, which gives an unusual clarity to the textures. He’s very good at withdrawing his sound to a whisper too. In the frenetically unstable third piece I do find Paul Lewis more effective, though, combining the vision of Brendel with a colour palette all his own.

The sonatas are more of a mixed bag. In the opening movement of D958 I found myself slightly distracted by the agogic distortions (small but pervasive) of the second theme. There’s no doubting the thought that has gone into Lonquich’s interpretation but sometimes that seems to stand in the way of the progress of the drama. The second movement is well shaped, though his accentuation can obtrude somewhat – Lewis gets this just right and Lupu, daringly slow, finds a hymnic depth to the music. The Scherzo in this new recording is a little on the slow side for my taste and the finale, too, is tame compared to Uchida and Lewis.

D960 fares better – with a good, steady tread underpinning the first movement, even if Lonquich rather overplays the ominous deep trill from the off (Pires, with haloed sound, is irresistible here). He very much makes the Andante sostenuto his own, the main theme initially sounding as if all emotion has been spent, yet gradually warming the tonal colouring. If the accentuation is somewhat unsubtle in the Scherzo’s Trio, the movement’s sense of desperation is vividly etched. Lonquich is alive to the constantly shifting moods of the finale, too.

The A major Sonata, D959, left me more unsatisfied: the opening is given with a freedom that obscures its Classical sense of line – just a few moments with Lewis and you get a much better idea of how the movement unfolds. Similarly, the Andantino is flecked with desynchronisations of the hands and accentuation that is unsubtly applied. The famous passage where Schubert appears to be depicting a complete emotional collapse has an improvisatory feel but doesn’t come close to the potency of Uchida. And in the Scherzo again we have slight agogic distortions that distract, while the finale is dogged by some slightly odd phrasing.