Numerous recordings of Beethoven’s complete sonatas for piano and violin are available in performances from the first half of the 20th century to nearly yesterday. Most of these accounts are played on modern instruments, which makes this latest set on a number of historic instruments a welcome addition to the catalogue. Cullan Bryant applies his special touch to no fewer than five late 18th- or early 19th-century pianos from the Frederick Historic Piano Collection in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. Jerilyn Jorgensen plays only one violin, a 1797 Andrea Carolus Leeb from Vienna, but she alternates on four period bows throughout the duo’s elegant and lucid traversal of the 10 sonatas.

A listener who takes in all of these pieces in close proximity will hear Beethoven maturing gradually and then suddenly. The last of the set, Op 96, dates from 1812 (a decade after the previous one), ending a 15-year span during which the composer wrote the sonatas alongside his first seven symphonies and other seminal works. Bryant and Jorgensen play the serene final sonata with valedictory wisdom, devoting intense concentration to matters of character, phrasing and texture. They find nuances around every corner and delight in the shared material.

Part of the joy in all of these performances emanates from the historic instruments, which are lean and bright, providing sonic glimpses into what audiences of Beethoven’s day might have heard. The violin shimmers in all registers, and the Viennese and Leipzig pianos are airy, colourful and rumbling in the depths. It isn’t necessary to keep track of the various pianos to savour the expressive grace and pliancy Bryant applies to each sonata. He has total command of the subtle and virtuoso challenges, including the extravagant passages and leaping figures woven throughout the cycle by a brilliant pianist named Beethoven.

The composer largely wrote these works as balanced conversations, notably in the later sonatas. The early ones reveal Beethoven’s debt to Haydn while restlessly stretching the language in new directions; the performances here of the first four sonatas are chipper, affectionate and keenly attuned to Classical style.

With the Fifth Sonata, Op 24, the Spring, Jorgensen and Bryant respond vividly to the increased emphasis on equality, playing with a collegial give and take that places the endearing narratives in distinctive context. The cycle’s celebrated Kreutzer Sonata, Op 47, receives sublime delineation, its dramatic, wistful and noble moods explored with seasoned assurance. Jorgensen brings a purity and expressive urgency to the violin lines that complement Bryant’s interpretative acuity.

The historic instruments used here might sound distant in some concert halls but as recorded with resonant intimacy in Ashburnham Community Church, they come across into clear, telling focus, especially as played by these compelling musicians.