There's something otherworldly classical about pianist Mikhail Pletnev: from the way he shuffles reluctantly on to the stage, as if he needs the applause to drag him to the instrument, to the disconsolate shrug with which he greets the piano. But when he starts playing, it is another matter. Few pianists have the power to animate their recitals with the virtuosity and insight of Pletnev.

Early Beethoven sonatas have rarely sounded as fantastical. In the second movement of Op 10 no 3, Pletnev began impossibly slowly, but somehow managed to conjure a connection between the achingly extended phrases and melodies. Each note took on a huge significance at this glacial speed, as he created a grave, lamenting tragedy. The movement ended with a moment of magic as Pletnev found a shimmering tone that made the music hover on the edge of audibility. The finale was a dazzling improvisation that opened with a question mark of three rising chords.

Pletnev's brilliance is that he makes everything sound new. Even in Beethoven's over-familiar Pathétique sonata, he found a way of energising the music, from the terrifying, crashing chords at the centre of the first movement, to the languid melody of the famous slow movement. But his performance of Tchaikovsky's Eighteen Characteristic Pieces was the revelation of the recital. Composed in the last year of his life, these miniatures encompass dance-like mazurkas, dreamy waltzes and diabolical scherzos. Pletnev created a journey between them that covered a huge emotional and psychological range. An energetic Polacca was a masterpiece of barnstorming technique; Chant Elégiaque was an essay in the expressive power of a repeated note. In the Scherzo-fantasie, Pletnev created a supernatural strangeness, and in the final Scène Dansante, he brought this kaleidoscopic work to a vivid conclusion.