Jean-Guihen Queyras isn’t the first cellist to record the Beethoven cello works with sparing use of vibrato but few of them, historically informed or not, have selected their use of vibrato with such a discriminating ear for structural function and expressive necessity. Yet one never hears the mechanics of these decisions. Certainly there are various earmarks of the performance practices to which Queyras subscribes to one extent or another; but how they apply to the music seems to come from instinct more than exterior observation. His cello always speaks with its own conversational voice, not as the music’s curator but as its protagonist.

What that actually translates into: individual notes aren’t fussed over, and everything is part of a larger phrase and idea, the peak of which is often accentuated with vibrato but never predictably so. Any long-sustained note would seem to be a likely magnet for vibrato, though Queyras’s choices are often not obvious but reveal the phrase with a sureness that’s congruent with the music’s long-term narrative. In the more humble variations, the piano is often the dominant instrument; and, unlike Mischa Maisky in his recordings with Martha Argerich (DG, 2/95), Queyras doesn’t fight that but often adopts a light tenor-timbre tone that recedes from the foreground but always reminds you why it’s there.

Pianist Alexander Melnikov rewards that primary focus given to him in the variations and the early Op 5 Sonatas with great precision of effect – colour, nuance and expression – that’s not often encountered even among the best chamber music players. Just as Melnikov was as responsible as Isabelle Faust for the considerable success of their Beethoven violin sonata set (it’s my single favourite – 10/10), he finds hidden meaning in the music when the bluster of competitive tension is removed. The two players listen closely to each other, even at such a low volume that they seem to be exhaling in synchronicity. Their reading of the popular Op 69 Sonata is the polar opposite of the youthfully explosive Yo-Yo Ma/Emanuel Ax recording (Sony, 6/84), with Queyras and Melnikov making sure no blocks of gratuitous sound obscure the individual character of any given passage but never downplaying Beethoven’s hairpin turns. More oblique passages of the Op 102 Sonatas may not be markedly clearer in their meaning but at least you know more clearly what Beethoven put on the page.