French pianist Hélène Grimaud’s previous album Memory (2018) was a beautifully conceived and realised meditation on the ephemeral workings of remembrance. In addition to works by Debussy, Satie and Chopin, it included two Bagatellesby Ukrainian composer Valentin Sylvestrov (b. 1937), who said of his compositional practice, “I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists.”

Helene Grimaud's The Messenger

On The Messenger, Grimaud returns to Sylvestrov for deeper study, situating two versions his titular work alongside three late Mozart works, all dating from 1782-85 and, unusually, in minor keys. The unfinished Fantasia No 3 in D Minor (K397) leads so seamlessly into the Piano Concerto No 20 in D Minor (K466) that it is, as Grimaud observes, “a prologue, an invitation to...