Bringing together two of the most individual pianistic brains around, giving them a copy of a Graf fortepiano and putting Schubert in front of them was always going to be interesting. Good interesting or bad interesting will very much depend how you like your Schubert. If the F minor Fantasy means for you the classic Britten and Richter or the refinement of Perahia and Lupu or Lewis and Osborne, then this may be altogether too extreme – opening with an other-worldly quality that has a rare fragility to it but unafraid to rise to coruscating fortissimos when the music demands it. The Allegro vivace goes with a real oomph and in their reading as a whole they explore the work’s contrasts to vivid effect. The return of the opening material in the final section is beautifully poised, while the fugal writing that follows here has an inexorable determination.

The brief Four Ländler, D814, are each treated to extraordinarily vivid characterisation, though part of me longed for something a little simpler. But no quibbles about the Marche caractéristique, which they launch with the Graf’s ear-tickling percussion effects, something they delight in using in the marches on this disc. In this piece in particular, some might find the effects are overdone: check it out for yourself in track 6 at 4'23" and then 5'09" – maybe the joke will wear thin with time, but for me it hasn’t done yet.

Both the set of Variations, D813, and the A major Rondo, D951, can seem a tad long-winded in some hands, though not, I hasten to add, in the excellent Lewis/Osborne set. Melnikov and Staier bring to the variations a lustrous range of colour (how delicately sombre Var 5 is here, in complete contrast to the buoyancy of Var 6, while the lolloping dotted rhythm of the final one is pure joy). In the Rondo we have not only the gentleness of the theme itself but endlessly imaginative touches which make it constantly alluring, and the highest register of the piano is fantastically crystalline, a quality well caught by the recording itself.

It would have been good to have some information about the fortepiano itself in the booklet (and I can’t find anything on HM’s website either) but no matter. A compelling addition to the Schubert duet discography.