Album: Andrea Lucchesini, Schubert: The Impromptus (Avie)

Andrea Lucchesini seems perfectly at home on these interpretations of Schubert's eight Impromptus – perhaps too at home, when plunging with gusto into the cascading arpeggios of the No 4 in A flat major, or indulging the ornamentation of the No 2 in E flat major.

But his treatment of the beautiful nocturne No 3 in G flat major is faultless, the poignant melody sailing weightlessly over the rippling left-hand notes; and his approach to the No 1 in F minor is sombre without being steeped in gloom. But it's the No 1 in C minor on which he really excels, opening like a stately march before slipping into wistful Romanticism and unrequited yearning as it shifts key and rhythm.

DOWNLOAD THIS No 1 in C minor; No 3 in G flat major