Philippe Cassard’s Schubert shows many signs of the extensive experience as song accompanist he describes in his engaging booklet essay. His sound is mellow without being self-regarding, his tempi are spacious but never comatose, and his phrasing is unfailingly subtle.

Up to the exposition repeat in the first movement of the B flat Sonata, I was prepared to believe that this might be an interpretation to rank with the very finest. But the literalness of that repeat is disappointing, and I started to long for more drama and impulse. Any short extract from that point on would confirm that Cassard is a sensitive and subtle musician; neither does he lack structural grasp, as his pointing of the crucial turning-points in the recapitulation shows. If a counterbalance to excessively romanticised Schubert is what you crave, this may be just the ticket. But the old chestnut of Classical versus Romantic in Schubert is really beside the point; the issue is really one of language and statement, and the tension between the two. Cassard, you might say, is a master of Schubertian language; whereas Brendel (pre-eminently in the finale of the B flat Sonata) and Uchida (above all in the first two movements) go beyond that to make statements of a boldness he never approaches.

Likewise in the A major Sonata, hats off to Cassard for his sensitive voicing, liquid phrasing and judicious overall pacing; he makes all these things seem far easier to achieve than they actually are. Yet it is to Uchida, or even better to Richter, that you need to turn for a sense of visionary consolation, of a motivating force greater than fine musicianship. I should say that the recording quality is a joy, the instrument seemingly ideally regulated and the acoustic airy yet unobtrusive.