Stravinsky and Prokofiev had a long friendship, if that is the right word for a relationship that was mutually influential but included many catty remarks, exculpations and reconciliatory dinners before the next reported insult. Their two sets of Etudes were almost contemporary, Prokofiev’s of 1909 following on the heels of Stravinsky’s of 1908. Veronika Böhmová has much fun with them, for both sets are really spirited releases of creative energy rather than anything more serious. She does not play down the often-remarked influence on Stravinsky’s pieces of Scriabin, a composer and a man he later declared he equally disliked. Both composers set the pianist (initially themselves) a ferocious task in rapid finger technique, here exuberantly mastered.

Böhmová also responds with great subtlety to Stravinsky’s arrangement of his The Song of the Nightingale. Of course there is a loss, of the orchestrally lush Rimsky-Korsakovian first part and the more sharply scored second, written after a long gap. But while the piano arrangement mutes this, it also builds bridges, and there is plenty of colour to be found in some of the most ornate and beguiling piano textures Stravinsky ever allowed himself. It is all beautifully done here, with flawless technique and great intelligence of perception, something also evident in the eighth of Prokofiev’s piano sonatas and perhaps the finest (Sviatoslav Richter thought so). Böhmová outlines the gentle, lyrical opening Andante with real tenderness, and the Andante sognando with a reticence that is more touching than the softer ‘dreaminess’ suggested by the marking. The final Presto energico is as vigorously played as the Fourth Etude, a Vivace that was one of Prokofiev’s party pieces and could almost be regarded as a study for the sonata of 45 years later. An interesting and attractive record.