Jonathan Biss doesn’t just play Beethoven: he explodes into it.

The early sonata, Op 10 No 2, with its triplet tunes and comical fugue, was treated with lightning tempi and passionate playfulness, a hint of what would follow with the Waldstein.

Five evocative and charming miniatures by Janacek and a lyrical Chopin Nocturne were played with sensitive beauty and in deliberate contrast to the final Beethoven Sturm Und Drang.

Op 53 presents a challenge to any pianist, on any piano. The energy of the opening rhythm develops into the excitement of Beethoven’s modulation and thematic development, but no composer’s markings can dictate what a pianist, centuries later, chooses to do with it. Biss, gifted with an astonishing virtuoso technique and possessed of fingers like steel feathers, took it at the double.

It was living very dangerously indeed and there were moments when I feared for its – or my – survival, as he hurtled through the pianissimo glissandi in octaves and trilled for his life between the staves.

A musically idiosyncratic performance of courage, strength and skill needed broken strings to fly out of the piano and weeping maidens throwing roses; thunderous applause was not enough.