EVER onwards and upwards goes York pianist Sarah Beth Briggs’s recording career.

This is her fifth disc and bids to outshine them all. She sandwiches a hearty chunk of Chopin between two Debussy suites, a 75-minute combination to satisfy even the most jaded palate.

Briggs was never one to do things by halves. Debussy and Chopin have often figured side by side in her programmes. Here she shows why: their music has clear connections, borne out of Debussy’s deep admiration for his Romantic hero.

She discovers and lays bare the poetry in Chopin’s First Ballade by allowing the music to breathe; the narrative expands spontaneously.

The filigrees of the Berceuse are magical. In the F minor Fantasy, not easy to make sense of, her chameleon touch lays out a highly plausible argument, notably in its radiant conclusion. There are wonderful cantabiles, too, in the Fourth Scherzo, alongside her dances in some of Chopin’s sunniest uplands.

Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque sees her in equally determined mood. She finds structure in the Prélude’s doodlings. Though a touch heavy in the Menuet, she compensates at once with an exquisite gem in Clair de Lune. Passepied emerges as an entrancing clockwork ballet.

The innocent-sounding suite Pour le Piano is anything but. But Briggs makes light of its demands, invigorating in its prelude, elegant in the Sarabande, and immaculately clear in the Toccata’s dazzling moto perpetuo. Praise, too, to producer Simon Fox-Gál for splendid sound. Highly recommended.

Available from sarahbethbriggs.co.uk