In a world where Enescu received his due, the Impressions d’enfance would rank alongside Children’s Corner and Kinderszenen as adult evocations of early life which nonetheless see the world from the child’s eye. The word ‘sonata’ retains an abstract glamour, and so violinists tend to be drawn towards Enescu’s three essays in the genre. But the Impressions are much more than a character suite of pretty miniatures, and Enescu wrote for both violin and piano from the inside out. Coco Tomita and Simon Callaghan sensitively register all the detail of the story: the dignified old beggar viewed from the garden gate, the evening crickets, the storm at night and the transcendent arrival of a new day.

The dark and turbulent sound world of Prokofiev’s First Sonata demands a heavier touch from both musicians. Yet Tomita never sacrifices purity of intonation in drawing out the raw anguish of the first movement, and Callaghan evokes the pounding weight of the ‘war’ sonatas without overwhelming his partner. Violence often turns ugly in both Prokofiev and Janáček, a tendency altogether avoided here. Rather, the wide-eyed wonder of Janáček’s violin-writing becomes an effective bridge between his two contemporaries. However generic the title appears at first sight, ‘Echoes’ reflects a hall of mirrors in which the folk-inspired melodic language of each composer retains its individuality while speaking and singing in a shared Slavic grammar, each of them inflected by the sense of loss which permeates their time. In all three works, Tomita captures a fierce and urgent rapture that survives the editing suite as an impressive sequel to the ‘Origins’ album praised by Rob Cowan (5/22).