Here’s a neat concept for an album; and unlike many others, it doesn’t over-determine an understanding of the music. Instead it offers the young and newly formed Trio Dichter the chance to bring together known and lesser-known works that might have been played chez Robert and Clara Schumann, whether by themselves and/or by their guests and visitors.

Naturally Brahms and Mendelssohn make an appearance, albeit rather briefly. The former is represented by two songs featuring Samuel Hasselhorn: unduly hectoring in the folksy ‘Schwesterlein’ (originally, and much more effectively, a duo) but more sympathetic in the famous ‘Wiegenlied’. Mendelssohn’s four-hand Andante and Allegro assai vivace, delivered with some élan, is an apt choice, given its dedication to Clara and its spirit of home music-making, while Niels Gade and Theodore Kirchner represent the Schumanns’ young protégés. The inclusion of a little Bach prelude and a rather blandly performed Scarlatti sonata seems somewhat redundant, as do the trio arrangements of the two Kinderszenen movements.

Strangely Clara, the other ‘protagonist’, as the booklet refers to her, gets a meagre share of the programme, with just two modest pieces: one from her Drei Romanzen and an early and pleasantly rhapsodic Notturno, alas sounding pale beside the sunny inspiration of Robert’s ‘Widmung’.

The concept conveniently accommodates the goal of the Stradivari series, which showcases the rich collection of instruments at the Musée de la Musique within the Philharmonie de Paris. Here two instruments from the collection are presented: a 1734 Pietro Guarneri cello and a 1890 Bösendorfer piano. Given the intended recreation of the atmosphere and sprit of the Schumanniade, the latter is a curiously anachronistic choice. Tonally it is not a thing of great beauty either, and nor do the performances show it in the best light.

Schumann’s Second Piano Trio, placed at the heart of the programme, suffers the most. Trio Dichter bring a good measure of energy and bravado to the passionately extrovert opening movement, but the timbres never bloom and the interpretation remains earthbound. Compare Trio Wanderer’s vigour and airiness, or Melnikov (on a much more appropriate 1847 Streicher) and partners, who show how it is possible to be spacious yet deft and flexible. The darker and more intimate world of the second movement is a better fit for the Dichters. Yet both here and, especially, in the barcarolle-like third movement they are more hesitant and static, even a touch pedestrian, compared to their rivals. The finale is stylish and well balanced but even here I could not shake off the feeling that those qualities were being achieved despite their instruments rather than thanks to them.