Beethoven presented his Septet to the Viennese public in April 1800 as part of a marathon concert that also included the premiere performance his First Symphony. Such was the Septet’s success that a few years later he arranged the work for clarinet, cello and piano to render it more suitable for domestic music-making. While I’m probably not alone in greatly preferring the richer colour palette of the original, the trio version is extremely effective in its own terms.

The several recordings I’ve heard of Op 38 emphasise the music’s gemütlich qualities – Eduard Brunner, Boris Pergamenschikow and Vassily Lobanov on Tudor are marvellously sweet-tempered – but this new account takes a completely different tack, and suggests that Beethoven set out to dazzle more than to charm. Indeed, Alexander Bedenko, Kyril Zlotnikov and Itamar Golan play with such fire and panache that they nearly persuaded me the arrangement is the equal of the original. I say nearly because occasionally a brittleness creeps into their performance. Listen, say, to their clipped articulation and flip phrasing in the third-movement Tempo di menuetto. These moments are disconcerting because otherwise the musicians characterise so vividly and with real affection. I love the play of textures they bring to the opening Allegro con brio, alternating spiky with silky, for example, and they make magic in the Adagio cantabile’s surprising shift from E flat to C major (listen starting around 3'30").

Timbrally, the performances are ravishing. Bedenko’s tone is the most luxurious velvet and an effective foil for Zlotnikov’s tensile yet supple sound – think fine-grained leather – and both are set off by the coruscating clarity of Golan’s fingerwork. I wish the engineers had given the cello a bit more presence, as he sometimes gets buried in the resonant studio acoustic. This imbalance is somewhat more noticeable in the Brahms but it’s a minor blemish, and musically the interpretation is wholly convincing in its careful balance of full-throated fervour and tender delicacy. It abounds in marvellous details, too, like the liquid pianissimo scales at the end of the Allegro’s exposition (at 3'32") and again in the coda. They make the Andantino grazioso one of the most delectable of Brahms’s many waltzes, and the finale stays light on its feet but still packs an emotional punch. Warmly recommended.