Stephen Sensbach documented the abundant literature of French cello sonatas in a comprehensive study (Lilliput Press: 2001), invaluable for cellists on the lookout for new repertoire. Marina Tarasova has all the necessary equipment to bring the book to life for listeners: self evidently, a spirit of adventure; a big boned, warm tone and a decisive sense of phrasing; and, in Ivan Sokolov, a partner prepared to hold in check some heavy-mahogany piano parts.

In a first volume, she grappled with the heterogeneous idioms of Lalo, Koechlin and Pierné. Boëllmann and Widor have more in common, though in the event, the essentially organistic nature of their keyboard-writing manifests itself less in gothically imposing chords than rippling figuration to support challenging parts for the cello cast as a hero in the mould of a Rodin figure. Tarasova does well to make the slow inner movements speak, rather than letting them drift into inertia, and the Boëllmann in particular takes on a tragic nobility that corresponds to the beloved Suite gothique for organ.

It is that paragon of Parisian establishment conservatism, Vincent d’Indy, who shakes up the form and style in his Sonata from 1907: more like a neoclassical suite in four movements. There is an attractively Pulcinella-like gawkiness to the second-movement Gavotte en Rondeau, and Stravinsky once more comes surprisingly to mind in the offhand introspection of the following Air. All three sonatas have been previously recorded, and with more finesse by Mats Lidström in the case of Boëllmann and Widor (Hyperion, 9/96, 11/03), but Tarasova and Sokolov deserve attention on their own terms. A third volume would be more than welcome, especially one focused on French women composers such as Bonis, Strohl and Renié.