Annotator Paul Griffiths imaginatively suggests that rather than calling his ‘clarinet trio’ Contrasts, Bartók might have opted for the more apt ‘Confluences’, a word that more accurately reflects the music’s conversational quality. The point strikes home with particular force in this witty, slimline and, yes, profoundly conversational performance, agility being a constant virtue and with never a hint of one player stealing the limelight from another. The nocturnal shimmering of the middle movement, ‘Relaxation’, is conveyed with cut-glass precision, and the closing moments of the ‘Fast Dance’ last movement are brilliant in the extreme. Rather than aping a rustic village band, Ehnes, Collins and Armstrong opt for a more astringently Stravinskian approach, save for the gentle bossa nova-style central section that sets in around the two minute mark.

André Gertler’s violin arrangement of the folk-infused piano Sonatina is a treated to a performance that is marginally sweeter than Gertler’s own (Supraphon, good though that is); but for a sequence that reflects just how much musical sustenance Bartók absorbed from folk out in the fields, you won’t do better than his 44 Duos for violins of 1931, teaching material that can instruct the listener as much it instructs the players. The range of musics on offer here is very wide: Hungarian, Slovakian, Serbian, Romanian, Transylvanian, Walachian, Ruthenian and Arabic. Bartók’s harmonisations, with their sudden flashes of beauty or meaningful dissonances, help bring out the flavours of each folk style much as a subtle range of spices might enhance the substance of a dish. Try the ‘Walachian Song’ (tr 13), ‘Mosquito Dance’ (tr 28), ‘Sorrow’ (tr 34, especially beautiful), ‘Dance from Máramos’ (tr 38), ‘Prelude and Canon’ (tr 44) or the gutsy ‘Arabian Song’ (tr 49).

The trick in performing all these pieces well is one of balance, making sure that the duetting element is respected down to even the tiniest detail. James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti are fully the equal of even their most illustrious rivals, their playing varied and characterful enough to make listening to any of the four books of Duos at a single sitting a real pleasure. A lovely programme.