In the booklet interview Anne Gastinel talks of her longstanding love for Chopin, having played the piano for over a decade; she has also made the decision to select versions edited by other cellists rather than Chopin’s originals, which tend to bring the cello-writing more into the spotlight. The recital begins and ends with Nocturnes. If the closing one, No 20 in C sharp minor in Piatigorsky’s arrangement, doesn’t receive the subtlest of interpretations, the E flat, Op 9 No 2 (David Popper) fares better, with a real understanding of the eloquence of Chopin’s melodic lines.

The central work here is the Cello Sonata, a piece bristling with difficulties, not least the challenge of a first movement that is as long as the other three combined; it takes a rare artistry – that of Steven Isserlis and Dénes Várjon, for instance – for the work to emerge as a true masterpiece. So how do Gastinel and Désert fare? The piano’s opening is perhaps a little self-conscious compared to Pierre Amoyel, whose simplicity is matched by Emmanuelle Bertrand, whereas Gastinel, in her desire to imbue every phrase with emotion, can make the music sound overly broken up, even if both convince in the more confiding moments; and there is more rapt intensity to be found in the passage introduced by the piano at 2'45". A recent discovery for me is the recording by Truls Mørk and Leif Ove Andsnes, whose combination of grandeur, intimacy and flexibility puts the sonata firmly within a Beethovenian tradition. In the second-movement Scherzo, Gastinel and Désert find plenty of energy but others reveal more delicacy in the lighter writing, though they’re pleasingly ardent in the lyrical Trio. They avoid the danger of taking the Largo too slowly, offering a songfulness at a tempo similar to Bertrand and Amoyel though without quite the same ability to caress Chopin’s phrases. Du Pré and Barenboim are spacious here, the cellist’s inimitable vibrato lending the movement an intensity that few can match. The finale in this new recording is relatively relaxed, tempo-wise, and I prefer Bertrand and Amoyel’s greater responsiveness. Mørk, also relatively spacious with Andsnes (slower than in his account with Kathryn Stott), brings out the movement’s lyrical impulse but crucially contrasts this with the accelerando and più mosso markings that give the closing moments of the sonata a real adrenalin rush, compared to which Gastinel and Désert sound a touch staid.

That quality of consideration over impetuosity also colours the Introduction et Polonaise brillante, which needs the brilliance of Argerich and the songfulness of Rostropovich if it is truly to come alive. Gastinel is suitably heartfelt but Désert a little underwhelming in the many passages of fearsomely tricky filigree. The Grand duo concertant, composed jointly by Chopin and Franchomme on Meyerbeer’s operatic hit Robert le diable, sets off with an imposing brilliance in the hands of Gastinel and Désert but they make heavy weather of some of the more virtuoso writing. Turn to Sol Gabetta and Bertrand Chamayou, and there’s a lightness of touch and an ease that is utterly beguiling.