Best known as one half of the long-established piano duo Tal & Groethuysen, Yaara Tal goes it alone (mostly) in this fascinating glimpse of works published or premiered in 1923. Some of the composers—a roster that includes Bloch, Mompou and Schoenberg—are familiar, but the pieces she’s chosen are far from well-known. Take Delius’ enchanting Three Preludes which are lyrical, evocative and full of charm, or Joseph Achron’s poised and utterly engaging couple of miniatures. Josef Matthias Hauer’s Op. 25 Klavierstücke are tiny tone poems of exquisite delicacy.

There are riches to be mined on every track. Marvel at the wistful, delicate Quatre danses miniatures by Alexandre Tansman, one of the many European Jewish émigrés to the US, or Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s deliciously “anguished foxtrot” (“Le Fox-trot angoissé”). Fritz Heinrich Klein’s hypnotic Die Maschine (The Machine) for piano four hands features a guest appearance by Andreas Groethuysen, adding to an already engrossing collection.

This volume of Robert Craft’s acclaimed Schoenberg series presents the composer’s favourite of his own orchestral works, the Violin Concerto. Conceived in grand style and dedicated to his ‘dear friend and fellow warrior’ Webern, it draws on the techniques of melodic variation and development that Schoenberg so admired in Brahms’ music to reach a majestic conclusion. In the other shorter works, written during or after World War II, Schoenberg uses striking vocal and instrumental combinations to create intensely moving and dramatic music. De Profundis was Schoenberg’s last completed composition.

The very combination of these two concertos was willful, still more Gould’s playing of Mozart, with its extra embellishments and even new counter-melodies in the piano part. What seemed revolutionary at the time has become a matter of course in today’s age of “historical performance practice.” In contrast, the Schoenberg Concerto sounded, in Gould's hands, almost as familiar as Mozart …