“In many ways, the act of performing Bach’s original keyboard music on the modern piano is in itself transcription,” observes British-Australian pianist Jayson Gillham in a brief note to his latest release. Performing Bach’s originals here, Gillham does add the odd octave doubling or fills out the harmony. Perhaps it’s to be lamented that he didn’t compose any more developed arrangements for inclusion, as Angela Hewitt did for Hyperion. Then again, perhaps not. We should be grateful that Gillham has returned, for his fourth recording for ABC Classics, to solo piano, Bach and romanticism. Because the pianism is exceptional.

Gillham writes how the idea for the recording came after discovering Rachmaninov’s suite after Bach’s E Major...