Israeli-born, Hanover-resident Sharon Kam (b1971) studied with Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School in New York. In a successful global career, she has evolved, as the late Edward Greenfield noted (12/11), ‘an exceptionally wide expressive range’, based primarily in Mozart (10/98, 12/11), Weber (7/03) and Brahms (12/09, 2/16) but taking in 20th-century music from Reger (2/16) and Penderecki’s Concerto (12/99) to jazz. Her playing has at times divided opinion in these pages – even from EG – but her later recordings have met with much greater acclaim, as in 6/13 when David Patrick Stearns praised her ‘lovely, warm tone and seamless legato’.

I am happy to report that her playing of Hindemith amply demonstrates that last judgement. Hindemith was, by all accounts, no mean player himself and wrote idiomatically for the instrument. Kam’s beauty of tone and expressive understanding of a composer sometimes thought problematic – though I have never understood why! – is audible throughout the Concerto (1947), in an account that is a match for any of her rivals’. If not perhaps as mercurial as Martin Fröst (BIS), her playing is more aligned to Hindemith’s sensibilities, scarcely less than Louis Cahuzac’s under the composer’s direction in their still marvellous-sounding mid-1950s EMI recording (much reissued, now available from Warner). The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Cohen provide first-rate support in top-notch sound.

The couplings are, to my mind, even finer than the concerto. The 1939 Sonata is one of the best ever penned for the instrument while the 1938 Quartet for clarinet, violin, cello and piano is simply one of the great chamber works of the 20th century. Kam’s understanding and rapport with her colleagues here, particularly pianist Enrico Pace, are manifestly complete. This is a strong rival to Paul Meyer and Eric Le Sage’s recent account of the Sonata, and I do not know of a stronger rival for the Quartet currently available.