One gift that Fred Hersch has in abundance is to own his performances of works by other composers. His 1990s interpretations of Monk sounded like Hersch, every bit as much as they deferred to their composer, and this album kicks off with a version of Ellington and Strayhorn’s ‘Star Crossed Lovers’ that sounds rather more like a Hersch original. That said, the sinister, slowly expanding aural landscape of the title track (a Hersch original) is as much on the borders of free jazz as anything this master of touch and subtlety has ever produced. Yet, by contrast, his ‘Little Song’ is sensitively joyous, its spiky melody singing over a typically challenging Hersch accompaniment.

Coming back to standards, that spikiness is immediately apparent in the melodic statement of ‘Softly As In a Morning Sunrise’, which develops Romberg’s melody with a reverence that shines through the occasionally abstract setting. If you know the piece well, you marvel at his ingenuity. The same applies to the bleak opening interpretation of Alec Wilder’s ‘Winter of My Discontent’, though there’s a shining radiance in some of the later chords, before a long, beautiful and sensitive rendering of the piece that seems almost conventional. This absorbing interpretation alone is worth the price of the album, as Hersch shows that beauty, a brilliant keyboard touch, and a love for the song will always make for great pianistic art.