Musorgsky’s magnum opus requires pianism of dazzling virtuoso panache, and here Douglas is really in his element. He may not quite evoke the wild irascibility and devil-may-care unorthodoxy of the composer…Yet Douglas’s supreme technical ease and tonal control when the notes start flying – as in the ‘Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells’, ‘Limoges’ and (especially) ‘Baba Yaga’ – brings a special sense of frisson.

I don’t know how long he has had these works in his repertoire but they sound like old friends, well played-in…There have been more viscerally thrilling Pictures than this from Horowitz and Richter down, but few with such musical and textual integrity…nothing to scare the horses, nothing exaggerated, no tinkering with the text, each section deftly characterised and using the full tonal and dynamic range of the piano.

This performance is worthy of standing alongside that of Richter’s.