‘O sink upon us, night of love …’ Well, ‘Love Music’ is the title of this album from pianist Yeol Eum Son and the Bulgarian violinist Svetlin Roussev, and love music is what you get: Franz Waxman’s violin transcription of the Act 2 duet from Tristan und Isolde opens the recital and Leopold Auer’s transcription of the (thematically similar) ‘Träume’ from the Wesendonck Lieder rounds it off. The Auer has been discreetly transcribed into the same key as the Waxman, and Son suggests that if you’ve clicked repeat-play, you might not notice the transition, and find yourself listening to the whole album all over again. I can confirm that this is indeed the case.

Still, why not? It’s a captivating way to frame a programme set firmly in the late Romantic Austro-German tradition, and right from the opening it’s utterly seductive, with Son’s lulling piano providing a hypnotic setting for Roussev’s fluid, spontaneous phrasing and lustrous, velvet tone. That dreamlike inwardness and intimacy really does cast its spell over the whole programme. There’s no sense of solo and accompaniment; both artists play as if rapt, and Son is wide-eyed, sensitive and – when required – every bit as brilliant as her partner.

That all makes for an infectious spirit of mischief in the Korngold Much Ado suite, and an extrovert approach to the livelier Kreisler miniatures (almost too saucy, I initially thought, but Kreisler himself plays Liebesfreud even faster). The Strauss Sonata is rhapsodic in its sweep and tender in its expression; and the sound these players make is intensely alluring without ever being slick. This is a disc to sink into and savour with the lights turned low: highest bliss…