We’re not short of first-rate accounts of the Sonata that Britten wrote for Rostropovich in 1960-01. Pieter Wispelwey and Dejan Lazi´c immediately throw down the gauntlet with an provocatively mobile, nervy reading of the opening ‘Dialogo’ (they’re well over a minute swifter than both comparative rivals). It’s a lean, lithe and sparky view that proves symptomatic of the whole. Traditionalists may baulk, finding it all perhaps a bit too cunning for comfort, but there’s no denying the intellect, emotional scope and questing spirit on show.

Wispelwey’s mellow, distinctively ‘vocal’ tone-projection is heard to particularly beguiling advantage in the flowing lyrical lines that are such a feature of first and third movements of the Shostakovich Sonata. If ultimately not quite as selfless or humane as Rostropovich’s 1964 Aldeburgh alliance with Britten, here is a rapt and characterful reading which never loses sight of the Classical sensibility beneath this music’s by turns troubled and slyly humorous surface. As for Prokofiev’s seductive Sonata, these quick-witted newcomers give another articulate and poetic display, with results that are more personable and subtly variegated than the beefier Chang/Pappano version (the chief glory of the latter partnership’s recent EMI disc resides in the exceptional Symphony-Concerto coupling).

Boasting vividly truthful sound and admirable balance (audiophiles should make a bee-line to the SACD equivalent), this classy Channel Classics release has already afforded me heaps of stimulation and pleasure.