It’s 60 years since Amelia Freedman and a group of fellow students at the Royal Academy of Music established The Nash Ensemble. I’ve lost count of the repertoire they’ve introduced me to over the decades, both in recital and on disc, so innovative and exploratory has been their programming. Freedman is still the ensemble’s Artistic Director (see James Jolly’s avuncular encounter, 12/24) and she’s programmed an anniversary season of favourite works, including those by Claude Debussy, who is the sole composer on this new Hyperion album.

Debussy famously planned a series of six sonatas pour divers instruments, including those for the unlikely combinations of trumpet, clarinet and bassoon or oboe, horn and harpsichord. He didn’t live long enough to complete all six, the surviving three being the conventionally scored violin and cello sonatas plus the sensual combination of flute, viola and harp.

The Nash Ensemble have recorded all three sonatas before, on a long-deleted Virgin Classics disc (4/91). In all but one case, the personnel has changed during the intervening decades – the exception being long-serving flautist Philippa Davies. The current formation is splendid: Stephanie Gonley and Alasdair Beatson in the Violin Sonata; Adrian Brendel and Simon Crawford-Phillips in the Cello Sonata; while Davies is joined by Lawrence Power and Lucy Wakeford in the Sonata for flute, viola and harp.

In every respect, these are stronger readings than the Virgin outing, not least due to the splendid recording in All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, a favoured Hyperion venue, produced by Andrew Keener. The sound is fuller and richer, the microphone placement closer, capturing more detail.

But how do the Nash players fare when up against Gallic competition? Erato’s starry 2017 line-up features Renaud Capuçon, Edgar Moreau, Bertrand Chamayou and Emmanuel Pahud, among others, my ‘go to’ disc for the three sonatas on a single album. Well, Capuçon and Moreau are silkier players than their Nash counterparts but are recorded more distantly. I enjoy Gonley’s impetuosity in her finale and Brendel’s introspective brooding. Davies, Power and Wakeford are wonderfully animated in their sonata – a close cousin to the Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune – earthy in the case of Power’s viola. Erato’s gauzy recording for Pahud and co suits their languorous reading, though (and Pahud’s golden tone astonishes). Aptly, Debussy’s Faune opens Hyperion’s programme in an exquisite arrangement by David Walter for wind quintet, string quartet, double bass, harp and crotales, which loses little from Debussy’s heady orchestral score. It’s a pity that Syrinx couldn’t be squeezed on to the album too.

Debussy’s sole String Quartet ends the disc, an engaging reading, if not as tangy as the outstanding Quatuor Ébène (Erato). The Nash’s fleet-footed reading is enormously enjoyable, as is this entire disc.