At the radiantly lovely opening of the Prokofiev Sonata one realises that Marina Piccinini’s flute-playing is very special, her lyrical phrasing cool, exquisitely shaped and with an underlying delicate sensuality. She is equally captivating in the will-o’-the-wisp Scherzo, even with a touch of whimsy, and the Andante has a subtle, beguiling, romantic feeling to contrast with the gambolling finale, spiritedly infectious. In short, with Andreas Haefliger a highly sympathetic partner, this outstanding performance establishes the writing as perfect for the flute, even with one’s memories of the Second Violin Sonata, which the work subsequently became at the behest of David Oistrakh.

Similarly, the opening of the Franck Sonata is instantly beguiling, with flute and piano echoing each other engagingly at the opening and in the dreamy Andante. But this work was written for the violin, and enjoyable though the performance is, when the music takes off passionately, as in the Scherzo, the flute cannot match the violin’s bowed timbre in sheer intensity of feeling. Syrinx is, as it should be, a haunting distillation of gentle lyricism; but I cannot see the purpose of including Liszt’s concert paraphrase of Isolde’s Liebestod in such a collection. Haefliger plays it passionately with true Lisztian bravura but (especially with such spectacularly resonant piano sound) one longs for Wagner’s original operatic scena.