With some discs, you can just tell that everything’s going to go like a dream. And it’s not just that I’ve never yet heard a disappointing recording from James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong. The energy and bounce of the way they play the opening flourish of Beethoven’s Sonata Op 12 No 1 initially made me start; but within that opening phrase you can feel Ehnes applying just enough articulation to make it clear that this is going to be part of the musical argument, as well as the dramatic opening gesture that the 27-year-old Beethoven surely intended.

The freshness and spontaneity of these interpretations is unfaltering, as is the instantaneous rapport and subtle, crystal-clear tonal beauty of the pair’s playing. They lean into the Andante of No 1 in a way that allows both grace and a lilting sense of momentum, and launch Op 12 No 2 as if in medias res: with a dancing scherzo-like swing in which Armstrong’s left hand manages to provide both a rhythmic springboard for his partner’s phrasing and a frequently droll punchline to Beethoven’s youthful witticisms.

These are, after all, ‘Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin’ – a paradox that I’ve rarely heard so masterfully resolved on modern instruments. These players are simply on the same page as each other. The slow movements of Nos 2 and 3 are simultaneously intimate and pregnant with a sense of greater things; and the central tempest of No 3’s first movement is handled without any loss either of tension or clarity. The variations on ‘Se vuol ballare’, deliciously played, make an irresistibly playful encore to a disc which should give all but the most humourless of listeners consistent and unqualified delight.