In the liner notes to this astonishing album, pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin deadpans, "I don't like playing difficult music." Sure, sure. A quick listen to this dazzling new recording confirms Hamelin's status as today's top interpreter of the world's most challenging piano music. Hamelin has selected 17 short piano compositions by nine of this century's greatest virtuoso pianists, winnowing the soulful seed from the showy chaff.

While the Rachmaninov and Scriabin selections are well known, this disc holds many delicious surprises, including Godowsky's ethereal Toccata in G flat major, Alkan's witty transcription of Haydn's "Twinkle, twinkle little star" movement from Symphony No. 94, Feinberg's spooky lullaby Op. 19a, and his joyous transcription of Bach's Schübler Chorale No. 6. Medtner's delicate Improvisation No. 1 gives us a tempting foretaste of Hamelin's projected edition of Medtner's complete piano music on the Hyperion label.

Hamelin's own compositions are at least as impressive as the other works on this disc. His Études were written in homage to Godowsky and Alkan. Hamelin's Etude No. 9 (1990) after Rossini's La Danza, is a catchy tarantella that wryly segues into tough passages with cascades of thirds and sixths in the right hand, double notes in the left hand, and unpredictable cross rhythms. Étude No. 10 (1987) is a dark minor-key reinvention of Chopin's black key étude Op. 10 No. 5 in G flat, like a brief psychotic glimpse into Scriabin territory.

Hamelin's Étude No. 12 : Prelude and Fugue is his only wholly original composition on the disc. A slow atmospheric prelude with falling-water effects on the treble keys, climaxes in a compulsive Bartokian fugue.