With a truly beautiful tone, an innate understanding of the music’s structure, flow and emotional drives and a warm, genuine, unaffected way of shaping the phrases, it sounds as if he has a wise head on young shoulders; his playing combines that with the best of a youthful, fresh response to these perennially-loved masterpieces…Let’s hope this will be his first recording of many.

This is a reading that is full of glinting brilliance on the part of Lu – his dexterity is impressive, as is his trilling, and in the more extrovert moments he is in his element. Yet in the more inward moments, while Lu takes the dynamics down, he doesn’t soften emotionally or display much colouristic range.

Given the conditions, it’s not surprising that his efficient playing of the Beethoven lacks that sublime work’s inner warmth and improvisatory magic. But his Chopin sonata is masterly in its grandeur and lyricism, and the Ballade is a delight.

Now there are so many possible routes to a performing career, via self-publishing or social media, what competitions need to survive are good winners – and it may just be that the 20-year-old American Eric Lu is one. His Beethoven Fourth Concerto, with Edward Gardner and the Hallé, had both maturity and sparkle.