In the terminology of the time, these six Weber ‘progressive’ sonatas of 1810 are ‘for piano with violin obbligato’, but, if the piano does tend to take the upper hand, there would be some strange lacunae if the violin stopped playing. Here we are a long way from Der Freischütz and even further from Euryanthe and Oberon, all completed in the 1820s, but Weber’s originality and Romantic leanings are already in evidence. This is all the more true of the B flat Piano Quartet of 1809, harking back to Classical models in certain respects but, in the slow movement particularly, striving for a mode of expression that would come to fruition in the operas.

The piano-writing in the sonatas is already prescient of the effervescent fun that Weber would have in the F minor Konzertstück of 1821. The publisher who commissioned the sonatas rejected them because they were insufficiently dull, according to Weber; and when they eventually saw the light of day they were still described as being for amateurs. These would need to be advanced, agile amateurs, given the dazzle of some of the passagework, but – perhaps even more important – they would also need to have a developed aptitude for interpretation to bring out the music’s diverse characteristics and spirit in a way that the performers on this disc so entertainingly and perceptively do. Alexander Melnikov, with exuberance and sensitivity, plays a fortepiano of about 1815, and Isabelle Faust (on a Stradivarius) is his lithe, discerning and thoroughly engaging companion.