Marc-André Hamelin (piano) Hyperion CDA67789 ****

If you can play an instrument to any degree of proficiency, you've probably done at some stage what Marc-André Hamelin does here. You've probably taken a piece that you know well, tweaked and twiddled with it until it's quite different but still somehow itself. A number of Hamelin's 12 Études in all the minor keysgo a stage further. They take a leaf out of Leopold Godowsky's copybook and merge two or three pieces in ways you just can't imagine. Hamelin, of course, has the fingers to bring this off as well as the musical brain, and the result is, at its best, as mesmerising as Godowsky's similar adventures. Hamelin doesn't divulge the original for his Toccata grottesca– I can't help feeling I hear Rachmaninov's Polka de WRin the background. As well as the Études, the disc includes Little Nocturne,extracts from Con intimissimo sentimentoand Cathy's Variations. See url.ie/4qdb