Behzod Abduraimov (piano)Decca 478 3301 ***

Yuja Wang places Danse Macabre at the end of her collection. Behzod Abduraimov (born 1980), the Uzbek pianist who took the top prize at the 2009 London International Piano Competition, puts it first, and follows up with the violence of Prokofiev’s Suggestion diabolique and Sixth Sonata.

As this sequence might suggest, he's very much the showman, out to impress, and he certainly has the wherewithal to do so. There's much more of the feeling of the spontaneity of a concert in his playing than in Wang's – he takes far greater risks, both musical and technical, than she does. He gives the impression of a player who could be very exciting to hear in the flesh, but who may need to curb some of his impulses in the studio. The disc also includes Liszt's Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude and Mephisto Waltz. See url.ie/4w4k