It’s been six years since we’ve had a new recording from Mitsuko Uchida. Nevertheless Uchida, now in her early 70s, shows no signs of slowing down, with a busy concert schedule ahead of her. And anyway, her Diabelli Variations have been worth the wait. It reminds me of Claudio Arrau’s magisterial second recording, made in 1987 when he was 82. Perhaps it’s one of those works that requires a certain maturity to do it full justice? Actually, not necessarily, and I’m not alone in thinking that Piotr Anderszewski’s remarkable, orchestrally conceived 2018 account is one of the best around.

But back to Uchida. Her pre-eminence as a thoughtful and richly engaging interpreter not just of Beethoven’s piano music but of Mozart’s, Schubert’s and Schumann’s is unassailable. (I mention only composers relevant to the Classical and Romantic styles here; Uchida’s Debussy, for example, is equally impressive.)  And it will only be enhanced by this new recording of one of the greatest masterpieces of the piano repertoire. Which, incidentally, in having as its basis an innocuous waltz by the pianist, guitarist and music publisher Anton...