Non-committed beginnings, and a whiff of detachment pervades the first movement of the E minor Cello Sonata. Ian Brown keeps his distance, reining in Paul Watkins, whose playing suggests a need for closer emotional involvement. Some warmth pervades the B major third subject but the fortissimo climax in the development (bars 114 to 133) isn’t forcefully weighty, as it ought to be. Cerebral control recedes to a degree in the Allegretto quasi menuetto, returns in the finale but doesn’t cross over into the F major Sonata, where a palpable sense of participation prevails. Brown is far more at ease here, his rapport with Watkins closer, their commitment to the surge of the music uninhibited, be it in the opening Allegro vivace, the third-movement Allegro passionato or the final Allegro molto, density of feeling in the Adagio affettuoso touching.

Potton Hall’s acoustic doesn’t always register but cello and piano are justly balanced, and justly adjusted to include Michael Collins as the equal third. Or perhaps he’s a little more than that; because by stretching and releasing phrases without corrupting the basic pulse, lightening or darkening notes without damaging timbres, Collins shares with his colleagues an individual impulse to the music. A beauty of spirit in the Adagio recalls Eusebius Mandyczewski’s description to Brahms, ‘as if the instruments were in love with each other’, the following Andantino grazioso played with a questing but relaxed graciousness; and the changing time signatures in the final Allegro aren’t smoothed over. A penetrating interpretation.