‘Life-enhancing’ was how Richard Bratby described James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong’s Beethoven sonata cycle for Onyx on the release of the final volume (2/21). I’m tempted to say that their new album contains much that is equally remarkable, though it is very, very different. Szymanowski’s Mythes, the disc’s raison d’être, is juxtaposed, unusually, with Handel’s Sonata in D, before Ehnes and Armstrong embark on a lengthy series of encores, familiar (Tchaikovsky’s ‘Chant sans paroles’, Rimsky’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’) or otherwise (a lovely Sicilienne, attributed to Maria Theresia von Paradis). It’s a relaxed programme and you could argue that as a totality it perhaps lacks focus, but it’s wonderfully done, and further evidence of what has proved to be an exceptional partnership between these two musicians.

Mythes is all heightened sensuality and warmth, its heady atmosphere evoked through playing of extraordinary colour, detail and dexterity. There’s an unswerving unity of expression and purpose here. The serene way Ehnes spins out the rapt, ecstatic lines of ‘La fontaine d’Aréthuse’ over Armstrong’s liquid figurations proves genuinely beguiling. ‘Narcisse’ is in many ways the performance’s troubling emotional centre as its love song slowly and ardently unfurls over shivery chords suggestive of the calm waters of the pool where Narcissus becomes aroused by his own reflection: the music’s sexual undertow is unmistakable at this point. Pan’s pursuit of the Dryads in the final movement, with its buzzing quarter-tones and flickering themes, veers between wit and seduction, before ending almost with a nonchalant shrug.

It’s a spellbinding performance, and Handel’s directness comes, perhaps, almost as a necessary contrast after all that subtlety, suggestiveness and heat. The edition of the Sonata in D is Ehnes and Armstrong’s own, and they play it with persuasive forthrightness and clarity, together with an almost old-fashioned weight of tone. The allegros are all bracing energy and verve, though deep emotions lurk beneath the Larghetto’s poise. Then come the encores, ‘much as a great dessert concludes a fine meal’, as Ehnes puts it in a booklet note. Some are dazzling, in particular James Newton Howard’s abrasive 133 … At Least, originally written for Hilary Hahn. Others, such as Paradis’s Sicilienne, are graciously beautiful. Nothing sounds sentimental or hackneyed and all of them seem fresh and new-minted, even ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’, which is genuinely exhilarating here. It’s a most engaging disc. Do listen to it.