Moved, one sensed, by personal as well as musical admiration, the Festival Hall audience gave Barenboim a prolonged welcome before he even played a note. There was a time, 30 years ago or more, when every week on the South Bank seemed to hold a Barenboim appearance. These days, though, his piano recitals are rare and very special. Barenboim is 60 now, but the artistry is more imposing than ever.

The opening Allegro of Mozart's C major Sonata K330 perhaps took a little time to settle. But the confident pulse of the playing, always a Barenboim strength, was perfectly judged, and the mastery of dynamics was more controlled than in his youth. In the best recitals, there is a magic moment when the whole hall feels gripped by the simplest and quietest phrase and by the silence that surrounds it. Such a moment came early, in the pianissimo middle section of Barenboim's spacious account of the slow movement. From that moment on, the evening's playing grew ever richer and more rewarding.

The tyro Barenboim's Beethoven may occasionally have seemed a trifle glib. But you could not say that now. His account of the opening of the Appassionata sonata had all the physical weight that one could want, but again it was the inwardness of the playing in the slow movement that made the deepest impression. Each variation in this Andante seemed to hang suspended in the air, before exploding into a blistering account of the final Presto.

If these were fine, then Barenboim's playing of the four Liszt pieces that comprised the second half of his programme was, if anything, finer still. It was inspired programming to put together the three Petrarch sonnet-derived pieces, along with the so-called Dante sonata from the Italian book of the Années de Pélerinage. These were originally a virtuoso's compositions, but the ageing Liszt constantly refined and deepened them into some of the most profound meditations in keyboard literature. The ageing Barenboim responded to them in just the same way. There was, of course, plenty of fiendish digital difficulty, thrown off with appropriate panache, especially in the dramatic Dante-inspired piece. But it was the solemn, spacious, even Arrau-like spirit in which Barenboim approached the Petrarch pieces that will provide the most lasting memory of a rewarding recital.