Since the pioneering set by Jos van Immerseel and Jaap Schröder, the Beethoven piano-and-violin sonatas haven’t received a lot of attention on disc from historical instrument performers, so this is a very welcome issue. There’s plenty to admire and be excited about, even though it’s not a set that’s consistently illuminating and satisfying. Huvé’s fortepiano (a Johann Schanz instrument from around 1815) is closely recorded, and rarely sounds very quiet; the crucial distinctions between piano and pianissimo generally don’t come across clearly, and passages whose poetry lies in their tenuousness and mystery (the lead-back to the recapitulation in Op 12 No 1’s first movement, for instance) leave a comparatively mundane impression. I wished, too, that some of the smooth-running piano passages, in the opening Allegro of the Spring Sonata, for instance, had sounded more truly legato.

Jorja Fleezanis produces a fine, pure tone and shows good technical control (apart from one or two moments of uncertain tuning in the Kreutzer Sonata). But she tends to favour typical modern bow strokes, rather than the on-the-string détaché of Beethoven’s time, and her vibrato, too, sounds modern: restrained, but often continuous – in the Adagio of Op 96, for example.

Despite all this, there’s a great deal to enjoy. Whenever Beethoven is in passionate or virtuosic mood, Huvé and Fleezanis respond thrillingly, and the opening movements of Op 12 No 3, Opp 23 and 47 all make expert use of the extra clarity of the period instruments to generate a sense of excitement that’s based on the intensity of Beethoven’s argument, rather than sheer speed or weight of tone. The flexible, expressive phrasing of the Spring Sonata’s Adagio is a very attractive alternative to the more solemn versions we often hear. There’s a buoyant sense of rhythm that gives a very lively character to the Scherzos and the more dance-like finales. And one is drawn to an appreciation of the music’s contrapuntal structure by the beautiful way the two instruments blend together, and by the clarity of the bass register as performed by Huvé’s left hand.

A set that leaves room for potential rivals, then, but still has plenty to offer.