Stephen Hough brings his habitual cool authority to bear on these emotionally superheated pieces, and the results are very satisfying. He starts with a confiding ton for the Arabeske, letting it drift charmingly through a multi-coloured landscape before diving into the turbulent waters of Kreisleriana. Schumann’s sehr inning—‘very intimate’—here suggests wide-eyed wonder, before the second movement’s melange of styles and moods bursts forth with jubilation. The explosive urgency of sehr rasch—‘hasty’—gives way to the quasi-comic finale where the syncopations come in a mischievous whisper.

The ’Grand Sonata’ which eventually became the Fantasie in C major had been intended by Schumann as a monumental work whose royalties might help finance a planned Beethoven monument, and Hough’s playing has exactly that quality. Improvisational and intermittently hurtling, the first movement has a nobility which segues gracefully into the serene singing middle movement, with its alternating baritone and soprano voices. In the finale Hough deploys some gorgeous effects, before bringing us gravely home.