If you have the initial impression, as I had, that this is a motley collection of pieces, lacking focus, I’d urge you to think again. For one thing, it makes an effective recital programme, the items setting one another off, leading up to the major work (Franck) and concluding with a perfect encore (Tabakova). And the playing, in its technical command and imaginative grasp, is outstanding. One feels that Maxim Rysanov has a very special relationship with his Guadagnini viola, delighting in bringing out the particular qualities of its different registers – husky lower notes, brilliant high ones which, however, retain weight and intensity. He’s well matched by the energy and vitality of Evelyn Chang’s playing, strikingly so at the start of the CD (Brahms). On the following tracks (Glinka), she shows very different qualities; sparkling passagework and elegant lyrical expression, and she’s equally convincing with the impressionistic sonorities of the Enescu. In the Franck, though her performance is finely controlled, I miss the depth of tone Pascal Rogé (Ysaÿe Records – see page 76) produces, as well as the poetry engendered by his freer rhythms. But throughout the disc, my attention was grabbed by powerfully expressive duo playing. Rysanov appears as a true virtuoso in the Enescu and in the second of the Bridge pieces, yet he’s able to scale down his performance for the intimate, dreamy Tabakova Lullaby, and in the Glinka he brings a subtly individual quality to each melodic phrase. And there’s a strong sense that Chang and Rysanov really enjoy playing together.