What is there to say about Ashkenazy’s Rachmaninov that has not already been said? As pianist and conductor he has been associated with this composer throughout his career, and on disc from his earliest recital. As a young award-winning pianist and well into middle age, Ashkenazy maintained the big technique necessary to play Rachmaninov (whose large hands could easily stretch a 15th at the piano), coupled with a thoughtful temperament that produced searching and highly musical performances with a lack of over-the-top flamboyance. It is this quality that has made Ashkenazy’s recordings ones to live with.

This 11 CD set contains all the composer’s music for piano, two pianos, and piano and orchestra. He recorded some works more than once, so we find the Études Tableaux and the Corelli Variations from both 1974 and 1985/86 (for the former) and 2011 (for the latter). There is also a doubling up of the Suite No 1 for Two Pianos: we get the 1974 recording with Previn, and a later version with the pianist’s son Vovka. Yet strangely enough, Ashkenazy’s celebrated accounts of the piano concertos with Previn and the LSO are not included; instead, recordings with Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw take their place. The Dutch orchestra provide a lush accompaniment, and Ashkenazy plays brilliantly, but his interpretations have broadened. Nevertheless, this remains a historic collection.