Paul Lewis conveys the music’s intimate nature admirably, and he’s also well attuned to the obverse side of Brahms - the intense passion of such pieces as the first of the Opp. 116 and 118 series…these are first-rate performances, fully able to hold their own against the formidable competition in this repertoire.

Lewis’s touch is impeccable, which allows you to hear the depth of expression that is the undertow, if I can call it that, in late Brahms. Harmonia Mundi’s recorded sound is all it could be. Nothing, in short, argues against anything but the strongest recommendation.

Lewis has a great deal to say in these small works, despite their preponderance of formal, colouristic and affective similarity. His overall sensitivity to voice-leading is one of the recording’s strengths.

Lewis leans into the moments of startling modernity in many of these pieces: I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so aware that these works were written at the fin de siècle, or of the kinship between late Brahms and early Debussy…he dwells on dissonances which rival recordings often gloss over, and gently emphasises the richness and strangeness of Brahms’s many modulations into unexpected harmonic territory.