Only the first panel of this absorbing triptych is advertised as a first recording, but Viktor Kosenko’s Sonata of 1927 immediately commands attention for its simmering, Slavic-Brahms melodic flavour and innovative approach to form. The big opening Allegro is counterbalanced by a lyrical Andantino, led by a winding and thoroughly pianistic theme which takes a late-Beethovenian turn towards dissolution at the close, sensitively handled by Solomiya Ivakhiv and Steven Beck.

Ivakhiv makes light work of the angular, neo-Prokofiev violin-writing in Myroslav Skoryk’s Second Sonata of 1991. The compact quick-slow-quick form encloses a bluesy Aria at its heart, and a good deal of chromatic noodling within its 15 minutes. The 1922 Sonata by Bortkiewicz is an altogether more substantial piece, opening in the violin part with the rising sixth of Tristan. The following year, Bortkiewicz set the full Tristan chord to work in the opening tutti of his Second Piano Concerto, and Beck does well not to let a piano part full of notes overwhelm his hard-pressed partner. The shadows of Wagner, Scriabin and Rachmaninov recede after the first movement’s action, and perhaps something like the ‘true’ Bortkiewicz emerges in Ivakhiv’s exhilarating dance through the folksy finale.

Lviv-born, resident in the US since graduating from the Curtis Institute, Ivakhiv has already proved a persuasive advocate for the composers of her Ukrainian homeland. On the Labor Records label, her debut album included a compelling account of Lyatoshynsky’s Violin Sonata. On this Naxos sequel, she and Beck are ill served by the boxy acoustic of a New York studio, but their partnership stands up to the microphone’s close scrutiny.