Selections from Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons crop up regularly in recitals, but performances of the whole set, one for each month of the year, are much rarer. Tchaikovsky seems to be a Nikolai Lugansky speciality at the moment; his recording of the complete Seasons has just been released (paired with the unruly G major piano sonata), and the sequence made up the first half of the programme.

Lugansky’s account of the 12 pieces, with their stylistic roots in Schumann and Chopin, was immaculate, as one might have expected. But they are miniatures that need more than just keyboard security and polish, especially when heard en masse. Without some charm they can easily outstay their welcome, and Lugansky treated most of them in a rather strait-laced way; it was no coincidence that the most successful was also the most brazenly virtuosic, the August piece, Harvest.

The rest of the recital was dedicated to Chopin. Four mazurkas, each making its expressive point with maximum economy, emphasised how long-winded some of the Tchaikovsky had been, but the real substance came in the larger-scale works flanking them. Both the Polonaise-fantaisie, Op 61, and the F minor Ballade, Op 52, showed Lugansky at his best, making light of the music’s formidable technical challenges and giving it coherence. Most of the interest was on the surface, however, and the inner voices of Chopin’s piano-writing were hardly explored.