The Shea-Kim husband-and-wife duo offer impressive performances of four works that require an equal musical partnership. The duo have won multiple awards and toured internationally, also serving as co-artistic directors of Washington State’s Chamber Music in the Bend.

The disc opens with a bracing account of Beethoven’s early E flat Sonata, Op 12 No 3. The players shape the opening movement intelligently, articulating its elaborate figurations and motivic interplay while scrupulously attending to contrasts of dynamics. Then comes a soulful account of the Adagio, one of Beethoven’s finest early slow movements, a close relative of the magnificent Largo (also in C major) of another early E flat sonata, the one for piano, Op 7. The finale has the requisite energy, exuberance and gruff humour.

In Schumann’s late Violin Sonata No 1 in A minor, Shea appropriately applies a wider vibrato and Kim explores some alluring soft colours. The composer’s musical discourse thoroughly intertwines the two instruments, and here the outer movements sound bold and convincing. A more elusive challenge is the gracious, intermezzo-like middle stanza, where Shea’s directness and the close microphone placement don’t quite capture the half-lit atmosphere.

More allusive than elusive, Schnittke’s retrospective Suite in the Old Style (1972) was a product of his vast experience as a film composer. It is based on his scores to The Adventures of a Dentist (1965) and Sport, Sport, Sport (1970), each consisting of neo-Baroque montages. Kim incisively points the rhythm in the ‘Ballet’ and Shea delivers the halting phrases of the ‘Pantomime’ with purity and reticence.

Like the Schnittke, pioneering American composer Amy Beach’s Romance exudes charm, and the performers make it blossom into a touching salon miniature.