The eight Wigmore Hall recitals that make up Igor Levit’s season-long survey of the the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas stretch from this autumn to next June. If the schedule appears stately, the playing is anything but. Where some pianists may approach the 32 in a reverent mood of homage, Levit’s playing constantly highlights the white-hot invention of Beethoven’s writing, the stylistic disruptions and innovations, and the extreme contrasts of dynamics.

At times it can seem disconcerting. Yet so was Beethoven. It’s all there in the score, from the amazing contrasts of sonority Levit conjured from the closing pages of the Largo of the E-flat sonata opus 7, to the hurtling joy of the closing movement of the opus 81A “Les Adieux” sonata in the same key, in which Levit’s fingers were a match for Beethoven’s challenging Vivacissimamente marking.

The recital began with the idiosyncratic two-movement sonata in F sharp, opus 78, putting the spotlight firmly on the extraordinary four-bar micro-movement with which it begins, played with compelling gravity by Levit. The big opus 7 sonata followed, Levit’s urgent reading offering a total contrast with the olympian Michelangeli performance from 1982 recently rebroadcast by the BBC (currently still available on iPlayer) – but the younger pianist’s boldness was once again justified by the score.

After the interval came the two opus 14 sonatas, played without a break, in which Levit’s witty handling drew appreciative laughter from the audience, for which we were rewarded with a conspiratorial smile. The pearly tone of the playing of the opening two movements of Les Adieux showed that Levit can be disciplined and contained when he needs to be. But the whirlwind technique at the close was his authentic keyboard signature.