Two important works dominate volume nine of this series. The first is Bartók’s substantial and ambitious late-Romantic Piano Sonata, op.19, a very early work, composed when he was around 17 before his studies in Budapest. It was long considered lost and is heard in Goran Filipec’s performing edition, prepared from the manuscript. Zongoraiskola or ‘Piano Method’ was devised in collaboration with composer, pianist and teacher Sándor Reschofsky who contributed the exercises. Bartók’s 48 original pieces are perfectly formed and charmingly refined, allowing him an opportunity to explore his ideas of piano pedagogy.

The performer on this volume is Goran Filipec whose album Paganini Studies (8573458) was awarded the International Grand Prix du Disque F. Liszt by the Ferenc Liszt Society of Budapest.

He is well-known for his Grand Piano recordings: ‘Filipec is an exciting prospect and his programme is most valuable. What a pleasant change from the Brahms Variations are the Hambourg and Friedman Variations on the ubiquitous A minor Caprice’ (Gramophone on GP769).

He has recorded four volumes in the Liszt Complete Piano Music series for Naxos. He has also recorded List’s Hungarian Rhapsody in his own performing edition on 8573866: ‘Filipec’s up-tempo performances of the barn-burners – the Fantasia, the Rhapsodie espagnole, and Totentanz – have all the fire that the music calls for (glissandos, which Liszt hardly underutilises in this repertoire, are especially searing)’ (Fanfare).

The first seven volumes in this series were played by the late Jenő Jandó, one of the world’s most recorded and admired pianists. Volume 8 was played by Fülöp Ránki.