There is of course no way that Christian Poltéra could have known, when he chose to pair the cello concertos Haydn wrote as Kapellmeister at Prince Esterházy’s court with Hindemith’s Trauermusik (‘Mourning Music’), written in the space of six hours in 1936 for Adrian Boult and the BBC upon the death of King George V, that his recording would be released days before the death of King George’s granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. Still, the result is an additional resonance to this programme of works which, beyond their various connections to royalty, also share composers who knew exactly how to exploit a cello’s full range and make it sing.

Poltéra – directing the Munich Chamber Orchestra from his 1711 Stradivarius – equally knows how to make his instrument sing. This, for me, is the headline quality of these buoyant readings, because right from the opening Haydn C major, it’s Poltéra’s direct, glowing golden tone and smooth flow that’s out front and centre. Always there’s the impression of silky connective tissue between his gracefully articulated notes, even when they’re individually bowed and leaping everywhere – and it’s all helped by the warm (without being overly resonant) acoustic of Munich’s Himmelfahrtskirche.

These Haydn performances are supremely elegant and vital readings that sit on the early Classical end of the spectrum (so no keyboard continuo), brass blended suavely towards the back in the balance, with tempos that are faster than some but by no means rushed. The C major’s finale ticks excitedly along without going hell-for-leather, Poltéra at points bringing a plaintive urgency to his phrasing. The D major’s concluding Rondo is taken with a merry but courtly swing, lyricism the ultimate name of the game, with subtle rubatos at phrase junctures adding to its good humour, and Poltéra bringing delicious dark whimsy to the rise and fall of its double-stopped cadenza (all the Haydn cadenzas are by Poltéra and Heinrich Schiff, and are all brief and period-appropriate rather than especially striking). His D major Adagio is subtly sensuous, his Symphony No 13 Adagio cantabile beautifully poised.

Poltéra then ups the intensity of his cello tone for the Trauermusik, which has a similar sense of movement. But we’re now in distinctly more sombre, passionate territory, full of sudden contrasts and hairpin swells. The Ruhig bewegt has an emotive pastoral tinge. Lebhaft stings with its sharper darkness. The concluding chorale comes ravishingly clean, lucid and luminous from the orchestra, alive to Poltéra’s own keening but powerfully restrained lament.

Overall, this doesn’t quite shift Isserlis off my personal top spot (Hyperion, A/17), not least because I like cadenzas with a bit more to chew on. Yet Poltéra and the MCO are certainly up there nudging him, especially with such an interesting and successful pairing as the Hindemith.