As with the three string quartets, it is an interesting exercise to listen to all three of Britten’s cello suites in succession, charting his development as a composer. Unlike the quartets, the suites represent his expansion of a genre over a much more condensed period of seven years (between 1964 and 1971). They were written for Rostropovich; but, as he only recorded the first two, the position of Definitive Collection is still open.

Olivier Marron is technically impeccable and his performance of all three suites displays the sort of restraint without which it is hard to engage with the Britten that wrote them. He is particularly skilful at the opening in bringing out the inherent sadness in the First Suite. Indeed, the biggest challenge of that First Suite is to stay as temperate as possible in order to unlock its latent power. Marron manages this with admirable stillness and moves through the Second Suite with a maturity of aspect that allows the pieces to make the kind of sense they don’t in the hands of every player. Even the Chaconne of the Second Suite is admirably handled – a discreet performance that allows Marron to keep within the limits of the piece and not wrestle with it to the injury of the tuning or musical thread. But that alone is not enough to carry one through the Third Suite; and if I have any criticism at all of this elegant disc, it is that there is a subtlety lacking in the dignified passion of the Third (and the Kontakion-like Passacaglia) that is not in Jamie Walton’s self-effacing version of 2013.