How does one review a recording of this nature? The very last studio activity of the late Lars Vogt, a much-admired and greatly acclaimed pianist, with his regular chamber partners – three artists the presence of whose names on an album’s artwork has long promised music-making of deep consideration and consummate musicianship. It hardly needs saying that those characteristics are on full show in this programme of (mainly) late Schubert, whose inescapably valedictory nature makes it recommendable on its own terms for Schubertians and all who have esteemed these players over three decades and more.

The sensitivity exhibited by this long established trio extends to an uncommon degree of fidelity to the score. First of all, the listener is reminded how much of the two late trios is marked piano and pianissimo. Then there are inflections such as accents and sforzandos, acutely observed, that make lines suddenly bulge in unexpected ways. Check the music, though, and you see that it’s only what the composer actually wrote, obeyed to a level so rarely achieved. You are left in no doubt that Schubert the song-writer is in the ascendant over Schubert the symphonist, for all the expansiveness of these two works. The common, simple characterisation is of the B flat First being the more cheerful work, the E flat Second its serious counterpart. Seldom do you hear so vividly the strain of melancholy that runs through the B flat or the meditativeness at the heart of the E flat.

Perhaps, on the debit side, what is missing is the last ounce of Beethovenian drive that propels (especially) the outer movements of the two trios and adds contour to their sprawling architecture. Not that the performances aren’t eminently satisfying in themselves: the E flat’s finale certainly gives a sense of cumulative grandeur – and the longer original version is chosen, with the ingenious, highly dramatic pile-on of the work’s themes that was cut before publication. Nevertheless, a feeling of being held back, for all that it allows the few ff and fff directions to make their mark, occasionally retards the forward flow of the music where a greater sense of inevitability might be desired.

It’s in the lyrical music where these players come truly into their own. The Notturno is an undoubted highlight for the depth of contrast between the breathtaking stasis of its opening music and the two dramatic episodes that interrupt it. Christian Tetzlaff is fully in command of the technical challenges of the B minor Rondo in a reading that substitutes his own brand of reflectiveness for the manicness that is so often a feature of performances of this work. And it’s a real treat to hear his sister, Tanja, as soloist in a lovely performance of the Arpeggione Sonata. In all, a deeply personal survey of this wonderful music and a beautiful way to remember a great pianist.