It’s interesting how strangely set apart Schumann’s violin sonatas remain from the standard repertoire, and thus how comparatively sporadically new recordings appear. I think Rob Cowan called it correctly when he once commented in these pages that the reason for this with the Third Sonata – dated 1853, the year before Schumann’s suicide attempt – is because the music is too uncomfortable; and I’d say there’s an element of that in the two 1851 ones as well.

Uncomfortable isn’t necessarily the word I’d use as Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien launch themselves into the Third’s first-movement twists and turns, though. Certainly, it’s a passionate, multicoloured and contrast-rich reading, and Ibragimova’s colouring is a dream, treading an emotionally sophisticated line between dark and light. But it feels like a lighter spirit at the root of this particular flux between fiery pronouncements and enigmatic fantasy than there is with Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt (to compare it with perhaps the finest recording of recent years – Ondine, 1/14). This optimism proceeds to hover lightly over the middle movements before intensifying through the virtuosities of the finale’s puckish close conversation – met with gorgeously lithely flowing delicacy and vim, and a tremendous dynamic range. All in all, the whole rings with the spirit of intellectually sparkling friendship in which the sonata was first conceived – the second two movements having been Schumann’s contributions to the ‘FAE’ Sonata he co-composed with Albert Dietrich and Brahms for Joseph Joachim, to which he then quickly added the first two to create a third complete sonata of his own.

Zooming out, the first two sonatas similarly carry more a sense of energised drama and human warmth than of an anguished man on the brink of the abyss, if I can say that without making what is a gloriously nuanced, emotionally kaleidoscopic and at times sparklingly theatrical album sound like an emotional one-trick pony. Essentially, the picture painted has as much enigmatic control and soft-edged charm as dangerous duality. You hear the man Clara fell in love with, and whose friendship Brahms immediately wanted. If you take the First’s opening phrase, for instance, it’s a thoughtfully poised, only lightly vibrato’d meeting of its hairpin swells and fp push, rather than something more trembling and nervily choppy. Its central Allegretto comes with a beautifully lightly gliding, whimsical touch; exquisite softness in the mix, and its central outburst sounding like merry peals of laughter. The D minor Second opens crisply resplendent and dramatically taut (Ibragimova and Tiberghien’s clean-contoured rhythmic handling is fabulous throughout), while its chorale-inspired second movement is one of high-contrast, gamut-spanning drama.

Amid limited but tough competition (I haven’t even mentioned Isabelle Faust, Jennifer Koh and Andrew Wan), it will more likely than not be Ibragimova and Tiberghien’s set for which I will reach first from henceforth.