This release by a player who is thought in some circles to be a great pianist is entirely typical of the modern straight-line style of interpretation and virtuosity he epitomises; which means throughout these strangely neglected masterpieces Osborne is completely unfazed by any of the formidable technical demands he is confronted with, so he can play very quickly without any sense of strain or loss of rhythmic and textural clarity. His dynamic range is huge (indeed live it is greater still, but there are technical limits to what can be captured and reproduced), by modern standards his tonal palette is large, and he largely follows the score.

Certainly from the first note he commands attention where the light, crisp rhythmic definition and clarity in Op 33/1 are delightful, the different sections of No 3 beautifully integrated, the soft, sweet cantabile ravishing. When power is needed it is there in abundance so, with discriminating use of the sustaining pedal, the tolling bass of the C sharp minor rings out without any degradation of tone. In Op 39/4 there is humour and textural clarity, the following Allegro appassionato is just that, a seething mass of undulating power and the final D major, Allegro moderato, has huge attack. There are other ways of playing this music. In a generous selection on Praga SACD, one of the supremely great pianists, Sviatoslav Richter, uses far more tempo variation, rubato and tonal variation to make the music speak to the listener in a way that one suspects is alien to Osborne. Nevertheless, of its kind, this is as good as it gets and should be heard.

The recording team of Andrew Keener and David Hinitt have done an excellent job, having made sure the church used doesn’t sound like an aircraft-hanger. On the 24-bit/96kHz download (unfortunately a 24/192 version wasn’t made available) there is plenty of presence and projection within a nicely middle-distance overall balance. As with all recordings produced by Andrew Keener the internal balance is exemplary and the dynamic range is excellent, although it would be interesting to hear Osborne in DXD or DSD256. In essence the image captured bears a reasonable resemblance to what Osborne sounds like in the flesh and one doubts if (within the confines of the recording format) any other label could do any better.

As a bonus, Geoffrey Norris’s notes are excellent, as ever with Hyperion the front cover is superb and the download manager is state-of-the-art.