The flow of recordings marking this centenary year of Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) may be now well under way but the surviving Allegro first movement of his Op 14 Violin Concerto in D minor is as lesser-spotted as ever. Written for the Belgian violinist Ovide Musin, this movement was premiered in 1880 alongside an Andante second movement but Fauré never completed the finale, and in 1924 he destroyed the Andante (ironically, the movement the public had preferred). The Allegro has since been rarely performed and remains barely recorded – probably less because it’s a single movement and more due to its very particular, hard-to-nail language: subtle and songful Franco-Belgian noblesse, melodies unfurling slowly and organically rather than going for the instant big reveal, and a kaleidoscopically fast-shifting emotional picture, tonality constantly flitting between major and minor. Renaud Capuçon, though, has got its measure – playing and directing the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, whose artistic director he’s been since 2021. Weightless, silky song and pulse-quickening romance? Tick. Detailed, multicoloured realisation of its dappled shading? Tick. Taut, organic-feeling handling of its ebb and flow? Tick again. Add the orchestra’s warm, satiny blend and tight chamber togetherness and well-balanced capturing, and Philippe Graffin’s sophisticated 2001 recording finally has some competition.

Onwards, and the remainder of the programme’s unifying qualities would be the constant sense of perfectly pitched tempo, metre, weight and phrasing, of storytelling voice and musical conversation. Nothing feels forced, just effortlessly, gracefully inevitable. Masques et bergamasques, the orchestral suite drawn from Fauré’s score for a Fêtes galantes-inspired 1919 musical comedy at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, comes buoyantly light of tread, ringing with song and dance inflections, and dynamics crisply rendered. Pelléas et Mélisande’s Prélude has the fluid feel of music being created in the moment, and you’ll be hard-pushed to find its Sicilienne (taken at beautifully unsentimental faster-end tempo) sounding more exquisitely light, pure-flowing and nuanced elsewhere, or its separate lines and colours given such lovingly lucid, high‑definition treatment. High-definition chamber conversation is similarly the story of the Pavane, along with the tonal beauty radiating out from each successive solo instrument or section. Every note is golden.

Capuçon’s two guest soloists, pianist Guillaume Bellom and cellist Julia Hagen (from the current roster of his Beau Soir Productions enterprise, sharing his own stage and promoting young artists he believes in) are also impressive. The back catalogue may be bursting with Élégies from cellists great and small, but this is up there with the best of them: rich intensity of tone and intelligently emotive vocal shaping from Hagen, with an overall architectural sweep that takes you on a genuine journey. The piano-and-orchestra Ballade then makes a good match for Bellom’s soft charm.

Readings of this depth and quality suggest that this album would have come along in due course whether there had been an anniversary to hook it on or not. But to have it right now works just fine.