Frank Braley has not always received unconditionally good reviews as an accompanist – his big sound and strong musical personality have occasionally been too dominant to sit comfortably in chamber music. This has sometimes even been conspicuous in recordings with one or other of the Capuçon brothers, so it might be hard not to be slightly reserved in approaching this disc if you are a listener familiar with any of those comparables. Don’t be, though – this recording is an accomplishment in both duo playing and musical insight, and everything on it is unforced and unfussy, but perfectly idiomatic in its own way.

Schumann’s Fünf Stücke im Volkston provides an appealingly hearty transition from Capuçon and Braley’s sweet, uncluttered reading of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata to the Debussy. And it is indeed the Debussy that is the stand-out performance on this disc, played by both as if it were truly in their blood: here they tip their familiarity with not only the notes and their musical idioms but Debussy’s own musical personality over from artwork into a romantic paean pulled straight from the heart of French culture, far beyond the obvious Symbolist nature of the piece. It is for the same reason that the Britten isn’t quite so successful, although there can be no questioning the range they bring to it; and you are certainly left in no doubt by the end of the performance that, with that as much as everything that has gone before it, you have been in the presence of some of the greatest music in the cello repertoire.