This is a very impressive-sounding recording – vivid and resonant, with a natural balance between the two instruments – and it’s matched by the brilliance of the playing. Lin and Crossley give the Poulenc Sonata a great sense of drama, which admirably suits the energetic outer movements of the piece. The recording by Isabelle van Keulen and Ronald Brautigam is, by contrast, much cooler in tone: swifter and more refined. On the whole I prefer Lin and Crossley’s more forceful manner, except perhaps in the slow “Intermezzo”, where van Keulen and Brautigam create and sustain a very special, tranquil mood.
Lin plays Tzigane with compelling virtuosity, and the early Ravel Sonata is highly recommendable too: it’s a discursive work in a single movement with many attractive, distinctly Ravelian features.
If this disc is of interest primarily for the Debussy and the (1927) Ravel Sonatas, it might also be worth considering the recordings by Christian Tetzlaff and Leif Ove Andsnes. In the Debussy, they manage to capture all the detailed nuances, and the alternately sensuous and humorous moods in a way that Lin and Crossley, for all their brilliance, can’t match. With the Ravel Sonata, the issue isn’t quite so clear-cut: Tetzlaff and Andsnes give us a more persuasively wistful reading of the opening Allegretto, and, in the Blues-inspired second movement, Lin’s gleaming virtuoso tone isn’t nearly as appropriate as Tetzlaff’s more silken sound. But Paul Crossley brings a wonderful vigour to this movement, and both here and in the Perpetuum mobile finale the extra vividness of the recording is a real advantage.'