Vladimir Spivakov and Hélène Mercier are alive to the sensuous, impressionistic aspects of Chausson, and the fairy-tale atmosphere of the Poème is well sustained. Spivakov produces a lovely, soft, malleable tone, Mercier has a fine delicate touch and the free flow of ideas, the succession and blending of musical images, is never impeded. The flexible approach is sometimes overdone; there are places where one would be hard put to guess the notated rhythm. I was disappointed, too, by Mercier’s playing of the final tutti theme – she makes no attempt to sustain the fortissimo up to the violin re-entry.

Capriccio has provided a spacious, realistic balance that, in the Concert, doesn’t always make it easy to differentiate Spivakov from the violinists in the accompanying quartet. On the classic 1931 account with Jacques Thibaud and Alfred Cortot, the problem is solved by placing Thibaud closer to the microphone. Spivakov and Mercier are more polished than their distinguished forebears, but they can’t rival the definition and clarity of Thibaud’s playing of the ‘Sicilienne’, nor the stark, unbending account of the ‘Grave’. In this movement, Spivakov softens his sound with gentle vibrato, while Mercier allows the continuous ostinato figure to stretch and adapt to its surroundings. The finale, however, begins with tremendous energy, and the Concert sweeps to its conclusion in a magnificently expansive manner.

These aren’t definitive performances, then, but what’s missing in sharp characterisation is made up in beauty of sound.