The 12 Etudes d'exécution transcendante are famously and phenomenally difficult to play; this is possibly the most technically challenging set of short works ever written for a keyboard. The problem is that the potential for a mediocre – nay, offensively bad – performance is great, given the demands of the writing. One might compare the work with Wagner's Siegfried, the third and least popular section of the Ring: it is no less brilliant than its counterparts (indeed, I suggest that it may be the finest instalment), but the tremendous difficulty of the score means that tracking down a satisfying performance is near impossible. The same goes for Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor: it's the composer's masterpiece, but few singers can do it properly, and invariably one leaves feeling disappointed.

When one does find a good performance of such a work, one cannot help but be exhilarated. Claudio Arrau's 1974 recording of the 12 Etudes is a phenomenal achievement. Such is the pianist's technical mastery that one does not so much admire the brilliant virtuosity as peer beyond it, deep into the beating heart of the music. It is certainly true that Liszt pushed the piano to its very limits in this work, but the intention was surely not so much to parade technicality as to transcend both keyboard tradition and the limitation of the human performer. Wagner's operatic ideal was so huge that he all but reinvented the genre; Liszt stretched the keyboard's potential as far as it could go, and his influence has been immeasurable.

Arrau captures well the composer's sound, with muscular, visceral and confident playing. Articulation is clean, phrasing is shapely and fully thought-through, and there is little pedal distortion, even in the most frenzied passages. Arrau also provides a vibrant range of colours and a rich, orchestral timbre, the fortes always carefully placed and struck, without a hint of brashness. There is excellent use of dramatic counterpoint throughout, the introspective contrasting the demonic contrasting the humorous. Eroica is all pompous, grandiose rhythms, while Ricordanza's supple melodic and harmonic ripplings have a freedom that, here, seems to look back to Bach, while also implying Debussy.

The set is awesomely played, Arrau's technical mastery coupled to an array of interpretative insights. Pentatone's Multichannel mastering displays some occasional distortion, not in the piano's sound but next to it, but it is not enough to detract from this exceptionally fine performance.

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