Any violinist not relying on portamento to intensify the lyricism of their performance of high-Romantic chamber music is a brave one. Despite the fact that Renaud Capuçon plays with a full-blooded tone, it is rare to hear him overblow, either in Bach or – as here – in more robust repertoire. Rather, there is a calmness to his sense of melody that has a tendency to give his performances identity enough without interfering with the relationship between the listener and the composer’s aspirations for them.

This works well in the uncomplicated tenderness of Dvo∑ák’s Four Romantic Pieces and also in the threatened halcyon character of Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata (although there it occasionally lacks a certain airiness that in some performances, such as Henning Kraggerud’s on Naxos, is a more effective driving force behind the imagery). However, it is the Franck Sonata that is the high point of this disc, and that is down not only to Capuçon but also to his collaboration with his accompanist, Khatia Buniatishvili. With Capuçon’s self-possessed serenity on what is fundamentally the leading line and Batiatishvili’s fiery assertiveness in the accompaniment, they create a whole that is greater even than the sum of its remarkable parts. The piece itself sits together as a cohesive unity, with its musical ideas relaying from one to the other with complete sense and purpose; and that they have done so with little obvious attempt at imposition of will is testament not only to their maturity – as individual artists and as a partnership – but to the strength of the music they have chosen.