Even as a lapsed clarinettist, it’s difficult to argue much of a case for Bruch’s Eight Pieces for clarinet, viola and piano. The conservative composer had a tetchy attitude to musical modernists and these mellow works come from his twilight years, written by the 70-year-old Bruch in 1908 for his son Max Felix.

The clarinet and viola share similar timbres and ranges. Where Mozart and Schumann accentuate the differences in the Kegelstatt Trio and Märchenerzählungen, Bruch treats them the same. Clarinet and viola often mirror the same melodic line, sometimes in canon, often in unison or close harmony. The Eight Pieces are nostalgic in tone, often slow, and all are in minor keys save for No 7, which makes them – dare one suggest? – a trifle boring. ‘Autumnal’ would be a kinder word.

The members of Trio Apollon offer persuasive performances. There is grit in Felix Schwartz’s viola timbre, especially fine in the declamatory solos in No 3, while Matthias Glander matches him for tender tone in the G minor piece. Wolfgang Kühnl ripples the spread piano chords nicely in the F minor ‘Romanian Melody’. On their Cypres recording, Jean-Luc Votano and Arnaud Thorette are more languorous in Bruch’s many slow numbers, but – crucially – are faster in the two livelier movements. Trio Apollon miss some of the Puckish humour in the Allegro agitato No 4.

The disc is padded out by arrangements of Kol Nidrei for viola and clarinet and the Op 55 Canzone for clarinet (both stolen from the cello). Kol Nidrei is effective but Glander’s tone in the Canzone is pinched. The Romance for viola, Op 85 (incorrectly labelled as Op 83), is beautifully played to close the disc but is very much a case of ‘more of the same’. Votano and Thorette pair the Eight Pieces with Bruch’s Double Concerto, offering a less monochrome palette.