The comparatively routine debut CD of Chopin or Liszt isn’t for German-born pianist Chisato Kusunoki. She has chosen a more unusual mix of Rachmaninoff, Medtner, Scriabin, and Liapunov (Quartz QTZ 2089). Her love of this late-19th and 20th century repertoire may have been fostered in Oxford, where she read Music at University College, and soloed in Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with the University Orchestra.

Rachmaninoff’s Six Moments Musicaux, Op 16, aren’t quite the equal of Schubert’s Moments, composed 70 years earlier. That is setting an impossible-to-beat benchmark, though Rachmaninoff provides lots of melodic invention, which Kusunoki exploits very effectively. The music varies from the grandly structural, to a moving funeral march, to the gently yearning — this movement, No 5 in the set, is played with particular sensitivity.

The CD was made at Champs Hill, a privately built and family operated concert hall in Pulborough, West Sussex. The hall has exactly the right resonance for Kusunoki’s direct and clear style of playing, which is recorded quite close to the microphone.

Following the Rachmaninoff, Kusunoki plays Nikolai Medtner’s Sonata in G minor, Op 22. Medtner carried a torch for 19th-century romanticism well into the 1930s, and that is very evident from this performance. It’s a lively work, with many variations of tempo, which Kusunoki exploits to the full. Then it’s on to Scriabin’s Fantasie in B minor, Op 28, which, in Kusunoki’s hands, shows the composer spreading his wings from an almost Brahmsian starting point. Finally, Kusunoki plays Études d’Exécution Transcendante, Op 11, by Sergei Liapunov. This piece showcases her evident delight in colouring pictorial music, and includes a Dance of the Sylphs taken at a speed that would certainly make a ballerina sweat. This CD may not contain any neglected masterpieces, but Kusunoki certainly makes a great case for each piece.