Now this is my kind of Brahms playing: open-hearted, elastic and generously phrased. Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan take the opening Allegro non troppo of the E minor Sonata at a flowing pace, allowing the music’s phrases to be organised in expansive yet cogent paragraphs. Note, too, how attentive they are to Brahms’s expressive markings, so that the piano dolce in the second phrase (at 0'18") is rendered in an exceptionally tender mezza voce. And these performances have a frisson that had me scouring the booklet to double-check that they were, in fact, studio recordings (they are); the near-orchestral power these musicians convey around 4'13" is a prime example of this concert-like electricity.

In the Allegretto quasi menuetto, I love the vivid contrast they make between the staccato opening theme, with its charmingly awkward formality, and the grazioso passage that follows (at 0'49"), which is played here in impetuous, sweeping phrases. I also appreciate their far-sighted purposefulness in the finale, as they somehow manage to render detail without ever losing the through-line despite the music’s contrapuntal complexity. It’s one of those rare interpretations in which the dramatic trajectory remains intact from first note to last. And if it’s thrills you’re after, the coda (at 5'38") – which flies like the wind – would surely have an audience on their feet and cheering before the final chord had died away.

In Weilerstein and Barnatan’s hands, the Allegro vivace first movement of the F major Sonata is unusually intense and almost symphonic. Listen, say, to the development section (starting at 3'57"), where the duo are so daringly free that the phrases seem to come at one like torrential sheets of rain. The vivid and variegated colouring of Barnatan’s playing is largely responsible for this semblance of orchestral richness, although Weilerstein’s tonal palette is equally prismatic. She can play with the most heart-melting tone, as she does in the exquisite cantilena near the beginning of the slow movement, yet she doesn’t shy away from adding grit to her tone where needed, as at 0'57" in the third movement. Returning to the Adagio affettuoso, I must point out Barnatan’s rapturous realisation of the passage at 2'22" as it left me momentarily (and very happily) dazed.

Perhaps my only substantive criticism of these performances is that both players seem to overlook the crucial piano and mezza voce markings at the opening of the third movement. My other complaint, the omission of the exposition repeat in the first movement of Op 38, can be easily dismissed as I assume it was necessitated by the disc’s long playing-time (happily, the analogous repeat in the first movement of Op 99 is observed). By this third movement’s trio section (at 2'08"), however, I was so intoxicated by the pair’s yearningly tender caress of the long-limbed phrases that all was forgiven. And their exultant account of the finale is only enhanced by the ache they convey in the music’s wistful moments (at 1'42") – it’s such a quintessentially Brahmsian duality.

As for the arrangement of the Op 78 Violin Sonata, it’s almost always been transposed from G major down to D; here, it’s played at the original pitch. Pieter Wispelwey and Paolo Giacometti (Evil Penguin, 11/19) were the first to try this, I believe, but I prefer this newcomer as it flows far more naturally. Wispelwey and Giacometti’s focus on detail tends to rob the music of its narrative thrust, something Weilerstein and Barnatan communicate most effectively. This duo’s tempo for the opening Vivace ma non troppo is relatively relaxed, but the sense of quiet joy is palpable and the cellist shows no sense of strain at all in high-lying passages. I was delighted to discover that they place the movement’s emotional climax nearly at the end in the most breathtakingly soft passage of all (at 9'38").

There’s an ecstatic element to their reading of the Adagio, and I couldn’t help but think of this extraordinary movement as a profoundly personal missive to Clara Schumann, an impression reinforced by the touching vulnerability in the cello’s sighing phrases at 3'24". The finale is taken at a flowing tempo that somehow suggests both naturalness and unease simultaneously, and Weilerstein’s songfulness throughout connects this instrumental sonata to the lieder hidden at its core.

Brahms said, in regards to the E minor Sonata, that he viewed cello and piano as equal partners, and Pentatone’s engineers have balanced the two as perfectly as I’ve ever heard. There are of course dozens of fine recordings of Brahms’s cello sonatas. I’d never give up Claude Starck and Christoph Eschenbach’s gorgeously expressive performances (Claves, 4/91), for example, a true overlooked gem; nor would I part with Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough’s fiercely elegant accounts (Hyperion, 1/06); and more recently I’ve spent many happy hours with Emmanuelle Bertrand and Pascal Amoyel’s plain-spokenly eloquent readings (Harmonia Mundi, 10/21). But with the inclusion of such a superlative interpretation of the Op 78 Violin Sonata (at the far preferable original pitch), Weilerstein and Barnatan’s new recording goes straight to the top of my list.