The Moscow-born pianist Andrey Gugnin has already made a name for himself in repertoire that demands finely etched and exquisitely textured playing as much as broad brushstrokes. His recordings of Preludes and Sonatas by Shostakovich, Mazurkas by Scriabin, and an acclaimed homage disc to Godowsky (all for Hyperion Records) have all demonstrated his mastery of the particular skills demanded in small forms: a vivid response to the music’s character, together with a lightness of touch that doesn’t swamp the expressive atmosphere. For his latest disc, he turns to music by one of late Romanticism’s quintessential miniaturists: Edvard Grieg.

With the exception of the evergreen Piano Concerto, Grieg’s musical gifts are at their greatest in small forms such as songs, incidental music and piano miniatures – music in which he could give uninhibited but focussed attention to the Norwegian nationalism that makes his soundworld so distinctive, without being weighed down by the architectural demands of large-scale Germanic formal logic.

Gugnin opens the disc with one of Grieg’s best-known works, the Holberg Suite (or, to give its proper title: From Holberg’s Time: Suite in Old Style) of 1884. Composed for the bicentenary of one of the founding fathers of modern Norwegian-Danish literature, Ludvig Holberg, it was initially written for solo piano before its adaptation the following year for string orchestra. Hearing it in the original piano version is like a breath of fresh air, and Gugnin plunges the listener into the music with the turbulent semiquaver arpeggio accompaniment of the opening bars, although the way he subsequently lightens textures is just as remarkable. The following Sarabande marries delicacy of touch with poise, and that combination of sensitivity and poise is just as notable in the central Gavotte. The Andante religioso that constitutes the fourth-movement Air manages to convey devotional ardour without going over the top, maintaining the (neo)classical flavour of the Suite. Gugnin has a way of highlighting the tenor-register melodies in an enormously touching way without being in the least overbearing.

The Suite’s concluding Rigaudon is a sparkling delight, combining an infectious dancelike momentum with echoes of folk music and Baroque-style cadences. In its piano guise, the Holberg Suite seems to look forward directly to the more neoclassical piano works of Ravel (in particular Le Tombeau de Couperin), and if you’re not already familiar with it in this solo version, Gugnin’s performance is an introduction.

Eight years previously, the young Grieg gave the private premiere of his Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Melody, op.24. Based on a tune taken from L.M. Lindeman’s Ældre og nyere Norske fjeldmelodier (1840), it is a substantial set of 14 variations on a sombre 16-bar theme, lasting some 20 minutes in total. The first eight variations stick fairly closely to the outline of the theme, while offering a wide variety of moods (the Più lento of Variation 5, veering between imposing rhetorical gestures and delicate musings, is particularly striking, heightened by the puckishness of the following two variations). Variation 9 takes greater liberties with the underlying model, and Gugnin’s performance brings out all the music’s sumptuousness. From Variation 10 onwards the music builds to an increasingly animated climax before returning suddenly to the wistful inwardness of the work’s opening, and Gugnin paces this journey with a masterly grasp of the work’s architecture while encompassing a wonderful range of textures, dynamics and touch. A few minutes longer than Godowsky’s pioneering 1929 recording, this account is nevertheless just as much in touch with the music’s essential idiom, enough to silence the sternest critics.

Gugnin completes this all-Grieg programme with two complete sets – rather than the more customary ‘selection’ – of the composer’s beloved Lyric Pieces. Between the Suite and the Ballade he places Book 7, op.62 (1895), a collection of cheerful demeanour which opens with the coquettish Sylfide and includes the shimmeringly pictorial Bekken (‘Brooklet’), and the rapt, benevolent Drømmesyn (‘Phantom’), before closing with Hjemad (‘Homeward’) with its alternations between exuberant folk style and serene introspection. Gugnin brings out all the abundant character of these pieces without ever overplaying his hand. It’s a performance that perfectly matches good taste and judgement with vividness, and the same can be said of his performance of the ‘Spring songs’ (Grieg’s own description) that make up Book 3, op.43 (1886), that concludes the album. The opening Sommerfugl (‘Butterfly’) combines Chopinesque arabesques with intimations of Scriabin’s harmonic adventures. The third number, I hjemmet (‘In my native country’) seems to have not a care in the world, while the twittering fourth, Småfugl  (‘Little bird’), is another vivid nature picture, this time redolent of Schumann. Both Ensom vandrer (‘Solitary wanderer’) and Erotikk (‘Erotikon’) are cast in more reflective mood, but the collection and the disc close with the gentle, exquisite ecstasy of Til våren (To spring), leaving the listener hoping that Gugnin will record more of the Lyric Pieces in the near future.

The recording, made exactly a year ago in St Silas the Martyr, Kentish Town, on a Bechstein piano, has focus as well as warmth, an ideal combination for Grieg’s music. Notes (by Jeremy Nicholas) and presentation are up to Hyperion’s usual high standards, and with a playing time of almost 77 minutes this is a Grieg disc to savour.