Hard on the heels of Guy Johnston’s compelling versions of the Bridge and Britten Cello Sonatas (Orchid, 10/10) come these scarcely less rewarding accounts by Johannes Moser. With his beguilingly rounded, mellow tone and impeccable technical address, the young German-Canadian virtuoso evidently enjoys a strongly instinctive rapport with his excellent pianist Paul Rivinius – theirs is a superbly suave, thoroughly civilised partnership that will give great pleasure. At the same time, there’s absolutely no want of emotional heft or edge-of-seat abandon when called for: in the Britten, for example, the Elegia centrepiece rises to a truly hair-raising, imploringly intense apex, while the challengingly swift tempo for the Moto perpetuo finale brings with it not the merest hint of flashy display or breathless fluster.

The coupling, too, is both unique and enticing. Bax wrote his attractively concise and clean-cut Legend-Sonata in 1943 for Florence Hooton (whose 1958 world premiere recording with Wilfrid Parry has been successfully refurbished on Lyrita). The central Lento espressivo is an especially endearing creation, its gently swaying second subject subsequently plundered by the composer for his final tone-poem A Legend (1944). Suffice to say, Moser and Rivinius are highly communicative proponents of Bax’s heartwarming inspiration. Throw in a beautifully balanced production and it all adds up to a most impressive achievement that can only enhance this gifted cellist’s growing reputation.

Even more enterprising is the programme offered by Raphael Wallfisch and Raphael Terroni, whose BMS survey launches in imposing fashion with the tautly argued one-movement Second Sonata by William Wordsworth (1908-88). It was written in 1959, the same year that Wordsworth (in his role as chairman of the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain) met Shostakovich, and its brooding demeanour and powerfully inevitable progress seem to nod appreciatively towards the Soviet master. A similarly nourishing sense of discourse marks out the Bachian solo Sonata (1961). In between these two substantial offerings come the haunting, deeply felt Nocturne (1946) and roguish Scherzo (1949). Indeed, all four pieces suggest further exploration of Wordsworth’s extensive output would be profitable (six of his eight symphonies remain unrecorded, as does the oratorio from 1942-44, Dies Domini, apparently much admired by Vaughan Williams). Next we have Josef Holbrooke’s Fantasie-Sonate, an immensely likeable, melodious and fluent essay completed in 1904, and three striking works by William Busch (1901-45, father of horn player Nicholas) make up the remainder, the meatiest being the four-movement Suite from 1943 (again dedicated, like the Bax Sonata from the same year, to Florence Hooton). The performances are quite outstandingly eloquent, the sound sumptuous and true. Calum MacDonald supplies a helpfully detailed and characteristically astute booklet essay. A super disc, this, and urgently recommended to all Anglophiles.