If you’ve yet to be persuaded of the merits of the Chris Maene Straight Strung Concert Grand Piano, this bright-eyed second instalment in Martin Helmchen and Frank Peter Zimmermann’s Beethoven sonata cycle ought to do the trick. I’ve been impressed for a while by the way the straight-strung grand levels the field between violin and piano, resolving the innate balance issues (Beethoven was writing at a time of radical but inconsistent development in piano technology) without any loss in character or tone quality. But take the opening of the Spring Sonata’s slow movement – the unforced way Zimmermann etches his lines against Helmchen’s luminous piano tone – or the flashing bravura of Helmchen’s figuration in the finale of Op 30 No 1 (brilliant without a hint of overbearing Concert Grand thunder) and hopefully you’ll be as convinced as I am by the absolute suitability of this piano to this repertoire.

And – it almost goes without saying – by the imagination, energy and style of Zimmermann and Helmchen’s playing. There’s an understated rightness about the proportions of these performances that’s wholly satisfying: a Spring Sonata that manages to be both taut and serene, and an A major Sonata whose first movement unfurls like a blossom before finding a delightful balance of rhythmic poise and unbridled glee. My principal reservation in these two sonatas – that they felt, at times, almost too ideally balanced, too tasteful – was swept away by the C minor, Op 30 No 2: a spring torrent of a reading, generating a momentum that’s all the more thrilling for being so masterfully controlled. Anyone who loves these works will surely come away from this recording feeling entertained, stirred and thoroughly refreshed.