Melnikov’s recital delights from beginning to end. His playing is always a byproduct of not just a keen musical mind, but also one tied to the sonorities of his chosen instrument.

Fully attentive to historical shifts in idiom and unusually adept at illuminating the personality of different instruments, he’s also a quicksilver artist whose uncanny sense of phrasing responds to the moment-to-moment swerves of the music.

The Schmahl tangent piano on which Melnikov plays CPE Bach’s Freie Fantasie fürs Clavier is undoubtedly the star of this seven-keyboard show: it’s an extraordinary instrument which can shape-shift in an instant under Melnikov’s imaginative fingers...Two Mozart fragments introduce a modern copy of an Anton Walter fortepiano from Melnikov's personal collection; it’s clear that he knows this instrument inside-out, and his quiet pride and joy in its capacities is evident in every lovingly-sculpted phrase.

It’s the combination of seven composers at their most wild and free, Melnikov’s wonderful artistry, and the immersion in seven distinct sound-worlds which make this CD the most engrossing listening experience to have come my way in months.