An enthralling programme that stretches the idea of musical fantasy from the shorter of Schubert’s two great, late chamber works in C major to a brief if colourful Fantaisie that the young Olivier Messiaen wrote for his first wife in the mid-1930s. This is violinist Alena Baeva’s first release as part of her exclusive contract with the Alpha Classics label, where she partners the Ukrainian pianist and 2013 Van Cliburn Gold Medallist Vadym Kholodenko. The beauty of their playing is in the way they relate to each score on its own terms. Take the shimmering tremolo start of the Schubert, its almost Brucknerian aura, where the pianist invites the soloist to enter on a soft pianissimo (here not quite soft enough). Baeva obliges, then in the Allegretto second section there’s a collegiate sense of rapport, flexible enough to admit air around the notes, rigorous enough to focus Schubert’s formal design.

For the Andantino variations we initially enter the world of Schubert lieder (the theme used is the lied ‘Sei mir gegrüsst’), where maximum sweetness is needed, as well as a keen sense of play. Baeva scores on both counts, warmly supported by Kholodenko, her arpeggio-playing as clean as a whistle, her ghostly pianissimos suggesting mysterious spectres careering among the heather at night. More spectres emerge in the context of Stravinsky’s Divertimento, arranged after his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss (in turn a reworking of Tchaikovsky), the first section elegant, taut and propulsive – I don’t think I’ve ever heard better – the troika-like ‘Danses suisses’ alternating elements of song (Baeva’s playing is especially lovely here) and gutsy dance music, where Kholodenko achieves just the right level of rhythmic bounce.

Of Schumann’s relatively late Märchenbilder, comparisons have been drawn between the last of them (marked to be played ‘slowly, with melancholic expression’) and music that evolves out of the third movement from Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. Certainly a shared serenity of mood suggests some credence to that theory, and the Baeva/Kholodenko alliance takes the association a step further still. Messiaen’s early Fantaisie received its disc premiere some little while ago by the Hebrides Ensemble (Linn, 8/08), a rather more heavy-handed performance than the energetically animated option offered here by Baeva and Kholodenko.

This is an intriguing sequence where each work benefits from illumination by its programme neighbours. Most definitely recommended.