All cellists are attracted to Brahms’s two sonatas for their instrument, not surprisingly. The works are of sufficient stature to invite widely varying approaches, from the conquering vigour of Rostropovich with Serkin and the exuberance of Jacqueline du Pre with Daniel Barenboim to more inward and reflective performances by artists including, recently, the excellent Anthony Leroy and Sandra Moubarak. The new pairing by Clive Greensmith and Boris Berman is, generally, of the latter persuasion. The long lines of the opening Allegro in the E minor Sonata are gently played, not lacking in momentum but graceful and reflective. The notorious problems of balance, here and in such difficult places as parts of the finale and the Adagio of the F major work, are well solved, in part by ensuring that the cellist is set well forward. Furthermore, though his tone is not as powerful as some, its clean, slightly resiny nature sounds easily through the piano textures. There is a nice touch of the dance to the Allegretto of the E minor Sonata, as is implied by Brahms qualifying his allegretto marking with quasi menuetto, and plenty of vigour in the fugal energies of the finale.

The well judged fill-up is not more Brahms but Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style, played with a lighter touch and a quick appreciation of their fleeting moods: warm-toned in the third of them, firm and strong in the last, and with the wry wit that one supposes Schumann had in mind when he marked the first Vanitas vanitatum. Mit Humor.