As bad luck or bad planning would have it, prize-winning pianist Ishay Shaer gave the ‘wrong’ audience the more formal of his considerable talents this week through no fault of his own.

The current winner of the triennial Newport International Competition for Young Pianists appeared in the city of his 2006 triumph for a lunchtime appearance, heading for Cardiff the following night for a longer and more measured evening recital.

It was back-to-front for whatever reason and deprived Newport of due ceremony if not sixty minutes of superlative, if somewhat breathless, music-making.

As recompense, the Riverfront made an event of it by regaling its Studio space with impressive drapes and floral displays.

The 25-year-old Israeli was more than worth it, taking little rest in his programme of Scarlatti, Beethoven and Chopin but demanding that his audience remain alert in exchange for a necessarily whirlwind presentation.

This confirmed that he was an outstanding Chopin player, investing the Sonata No 3 with the delicacy and power it demands by halting the pace so convincingly in the largo that the first movement’s intensity, the scherzo’s frenetic revisions and the final one’s relentless gallop sounded truly inspired.

This refusal to shrink from the music’s worked-up core also made the Ballade No 3 memorable, despite a slip at the very beginning, and there was rigour aplenty in two Domenico Scarlatti sonatas and Beethoven’s Sonata No 30 in E, all well-known pieces rendered with a refreshing lack of over-familiarity.