For her new Harmonia Mundi recording of Fauré, French pianist Aline Piboule plays four of the 13 Nocturnes and seven of the 13 Barcarolles, prefaced by one of the Eight Brief Pieces, Op 84. Her thoughtfully conceived and appealing programme is presented generally chronologically, though not slavishly so. She plays a beautifully restored 1929 Gaveau piano from the collection of the Musée de la Musique in Paris.

From the outset, it is clear that Piboule’s identification with Fauré’s every expressive and rhetorical gesture is complete. The Improvisation, Op 84 No 5, gentle and searching, provides the perfect introduction to the set. Its air of uncertainty is echoed in the 11th Nocturne, Op 104 No 1, but soon gives way to an almost aching ecstasy in the fifth Barcarolle, Op 66. In the third Barcarolle and fifth Nocturne, Opp 42 and 37 respectively, the intensity is somewhat relieved – that is until the middle section of the Nocturne, the longest piece in the programme, ratchets it up again.

Later, the sombre 10th Barcarolle, Op 104 No 2, veers between acute loneliness and the brink of terror, not too distant from the late gondola pieces of Liszt. Fauré’s last Nocturne, in B minor, Op 119 – the penultimate selection – is given a powerfully impassioned performance.

One rarely hears piano recordings with a programme so carefully integrated or its progression of affects flowing more naturally. Piboule’s precision of touch and judicious pedalling are as consistent as is the sensuality of her approach. Strange as it may seem to speak in the same breath of championship and Fauré – a figure long enshrined in the canon – surely Piboule’s affinity and depth of understanding qualify her as an eloquent champion. If this programme is less extensive than Marc-André Hamelin’s on his much-touted two disc set (Hyperion, 10/23), Piboule’s interpretations speak with an originality and intimacy that are irresistibly persuasive.