Yunchan Lim approaches The Seasons as if it was a Schubert song cycle without words. Instead of Tchaikovsky’s evocative portraits and vignettes of the months of the year, Lim re-casts the sequence as depicting “the final year in a man’s life”.

It’s an interesting conceit, albeit the immediate effect while listening is to jolt the ear. Lim’s not always persuasive booklet note packs in more narrative detail than individual pieces can often accommodate, never mind the profounder claims he makes for music ill-equipped to carry such weighty aspirations.

The 18-year-old victor (the youngest ever winner) of the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Lim’s reading follows Bruce Liu’s Deutsche Grammophon take on The Seasons late last year, which was conspicuously free, as The Guardian’s Andrew Clements noted, of “faux seriousness”. It treads with a similar blend of delicacy and deliberation, Lim just as respectful towards and nuanced with the material as Liu. Recorded as live in the agreeable acoustic of the Yehudi Menuhin School, Lim’s...