The latest release from this highly praised duo works beautifully on several levels. First, the programme consists entirely of works completed in 1846, the last year Chopin spent at Nohant, the family home of his lover George Sand he had shared with her since 1839. The following year, the couple separated. Chopin wrote nothing of significance after that (he died two years later). So – interesting from a chronological/historical perspective. Secondly, the music Chopin produced at this time provides, in retrospect, an extraordinary juxtaposition. ‘How can one possibly believe,’ ask Amoyel and Bertrand in an introductory note to their disc’s first class booklet, ‘that the so-called “Minute Waltz” could have been composed in the same year as the Cello Sonata or the Barcarolle? That the [C sharp minor Waltz] is contemporary with the final Nocturne, Op 62 No 2?’ Thirdly, if one had never heard a note of Chopin before and wanted to know what he was all about, this varied selection of his works would, by happenstance, provide an ideal introduction.

Finally, the performances of Amoyel and Bertrand (very well recorded in an intimate but not claustrophobic acoustic) are aptly scaled to the salon rather than the concert hall. Does Amoyel make the Barcarolle a little laboured after its climax? Perhaps; but then afterwards he floats the right hand over the barcarolle rhythm to magical effect. In the Sonata, the balance between Amoyel and Bertrand’s mellifluous cello strike me as near ideal in the problematic first movement of the Sonata, and they observe its repeat, unlike other fine versions by such as Ma and Ax (Sony) and Kliegel and Glemser (Naxos). If Amoyel has nothing particular to say about the three Waltzes, Op 64 (unshowy and stylish), in the two Nocturnes, Op 62, he conjures up with great sensitivity an image of the heartbroken composer in lonely contemplation at Nohant.