Performances of Joseph Haydn’s two cello concertos always seem to be about the fast outer movements, but these recordings by the young Canadian cellist Cameron Crozman and Quebec City’s famed chamber orchestra with Nicolas Ellis at the helm suggest we rethink all that.

In historically informed collaborations using period bows on modern instruments, the soloist and the band (15 strings plus oboes and horns in the D major) capture Haydn speaking directly from his heart in the two slow movements with an intimacy that blooms passionately through their short lives, and suddenly it’s clear that the outer movements, with the full power of Haydn’s inventive genius, were meant to either welcome the audience or wake them up and send them home. I have never heard this done using period bows and period instruments.

Playing on a sweet-sounding Auguste Sébastien Philippe Bernardel père cello made in 1849, Crozman contributes elegant phrasing, deft virtuosity, magical ways with appoggiaturas and trills, and wonderfully imaginative cadenzas that feel authentically reflective, spontaneous and, most important, thrilling. His voice pulses with emotion in the slow movements. And it wouldn’t be Haydn without a fortepianist like Mélisande McNabney adding substantially to the experience with her own magical flourishes of musical delight.

The programme is rounded off by a five-minute Rondo by the Canadian composer Jacques Hétu, which complements the Haydn with vigorous, relentlessly absorbing explorations of the cello’s art and virtuosity, including a hushed sequence towards the end introduced by an exquisite oboe solo. The spacious, clear and colourful recordings were made at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec.