Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe give a passionate, full-blooded performance of the Lekeu Sonata, taking on board the 22 year-old composer’s lofty tone and high ambitions. Their approach is aided by a fine, generous recording; and if in the outer movements the displays of intense emotion seem occasionally excessive, this can be seen as part of the work’s character. It’s a different style of performance from Ibragimova and Tiberghien’s, on their 2010 recording. They give greater emphasis to the quieter, more delicate passages, with Ibragimova’s more narrowly focused tone providing emotional tension through intense legato, in contrast to Little’s more opulent sound. But the only place where Ibragimova and Tiberghien score decisively over Little and Roscoe is in the melody of the central movement, Très lent, where their restraint creates a beautiful mesmerising effect, missing with the more overt Roscoe and Little.

The early Ravel Sonata Movement brings a quite different style of playing, suited to the music’s refined elegance and evocation of remote modal melody. The more emphatic, stressful moments stand out in powerful relief as a result.

In the Fauré, Little and Roscoe develop a feeling of irresistible momentum in the outer movements, matching the composer’s unstoppable flow of ideas. They’re just as impressive in the witty, skittish scherzo, with its lyrical countermelodies. For me, the performance doesn’t quite match the joyfulness and sharp expressive character – touching or thrilling – of the 1950 recording by Lola Bobescu and Jacques Genty but it still conveys the essential, inspired character of Fauré’s first instrumental masterpiece.