Norwegian cellist Sandra Lied Haga opts for a French programme for her recital with Katya Apekisheva, juxtaposing the familiar Franck/Delsart Sonata with Rita Strohl’s Titus et Bérénice, something of a rarity and not, I think, entirely successful. Strohl (1865-1941), admired in her day by Saint-Saëns, Duparc and Fauré, was a post-Romantic maverick much drawn to the Symbolist movement, though her ‘grande sonate dramatique’ takes its cue from Racine’s 1670 tragedy Bérénice. The idea of a programmatic/narrative sonata is unquestionably novel, though the work itself lacks coherence.

A big opening Allegro depicts the Emperor Titus’s anguished realisation that he must dismiss his beloved Berenice, Queen of Palestine, while a Chopinesque (and beautiful) Lento tristamente suggests her unhappiness at impending separation. The final confrontation is turbulent, more so than the corresponding scene in the play. The problem lies in Strohl’s decision to also include a scherzo for Berenice as she is entertained by her ladies in Titus’s absence. Pitched somewhere between Mendelssohn and Delibes, it has little to do with Racine and is so stylistically incongruous as to be almost impossible to integrate in performance.

Such, certainly, is the case here, despite superb playing. Lied Haga has a mellow, appealing tone and a scrupulous sense of line, and is more than equal to Strohl’s demands for expressive and dynamic subtlety across the cello’s entire range. The piano-writing sometimes sounds curiously like a transcription of an orchestral original, with rumbling tremolos suggesting drum rolls and dotted-rhythm fanfares, though Apekisheva, excellent as always, brings plenty of colour and character to it. Interpretatively, she and Lied Haga are relatively reined in and introverted when placed beside their principal rivals, Edgar Moreau and David Kadouch, loftier in tone and covering a wider emotional range on a two-disc Erato set that also includes the Franck Sonata alongside music by Poulenc and La Tombelle.

Lied Haga and Apekisheva do excellent things with the Franck, meanwhile. Keeping us aware of the evolving structure without turning the work into an exercise in form, they give the music space to expand and breathe. Lied Haga’s unforced lyricism is particularly attractive in both the opening Allegretto and the slow movement, and she balances sweep and excitement with elegance elsewhere. Apekisheva’s technical finesse is apparent throughout, nowhere more so than in the exacting Allegro. It’s a beautiful performance, if again more understated interpretatively than Moreau and Kadouch. The latter pair make the slightly better case for Strohl. Which Franck you prefer, however, is ultimately a matter of taste.