Mendelssohn’s major works for cello and piano – the two sonatas and the Variations concertantes – are the ideal fit for a single CD with room spare for the odd miniature, so it’s hardly surprising that not one but two new versions have landed on my doormat this month. However, competition is stiff, from cellists as contrasted as Steven Isserlis, Mischa Maisky and, most recently, Paul Watkins.

It has to be said that neither Luca Fiorentini nor Gary Hoffman really changes the picture where recommendations are concerned. Fiorentini has been recorded extremely close, so every inhalation and shift of hand position is audible. He and his pianist are noticeably unhurried, not least in the Allegretto scherzando of the Second Sonata, which comes across as rather studied as a result. This is true, too, of the Albumblatt, where Hoffman creates a greater sense of line at a noticeably faster speed, though if you turn to Isserlis you’re immediately aware that a slower tempo can work in the hands of a truly eloquent musician: he and Tan imbue the piece with an intensity whose emotional impact outweighs its modest dimensions.

In the Variations concertantes Isserlis and Tan remain particularly persuasive, particularly in the febrile Più vivace (where the lighter-actioned fortepiano is a bonus) and the Presto seventh variation. The Watkins brothers are slightly slower but still commanding here, building to a cataclysmic climax, whereas Hoffman’s pianist makes somewhat heavier weather of Mendelssohn’s fearsome octave writing.

Hoffman is at his most persuasive in the First Sonata, where his reactiveness with his pianist is particularly effective in the outer movements. However, the slow movement sounds a little po-faced, especially compared with the Watkins brothers, who imbue it with more charm and even a touch of wit.

These are works that demand musicians of equal stature, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the piano’s soliloquy that opens the Second Sonata’s slow movement. The bar is set high by both Tiempo and Huw Watkins, though Maisky’s tremulous emotionalism that follows might not be to all tastes. The pianists on the two new discs are, I’m afraid, comprehensively outclassed here.