Until recently this music was almost invariably viewed and experienced through a prism of 19th-century rhetoric – listening to Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov deftly tracing the evanescent contours of the Violin Sonata comes therefore as something of a revelation…Most striking of all is the enchanting triple sonata, whose harp-inflected musings appear to float free of musical gravity in this hypnotic account…One of the most captivating releases of the Debussy centenary year.

Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov’s account of the Violin Sonata, Debussy’s last completed score, embraces exquisite fragility and strength in equal measure...Jean-Guihen Queyras and Javier Perianes’s performance of the Cello Sonata, noble in manner and grand in scale, balances the austere grief of the opening movement with understated wit in the Sérénade...Listen to it in a single sitting, and in the right playing order: it’s extraordinarily moving.

Isabelle Faust is a superb, sinewy soloist for the Violin Sonata, with Melnikov a strong partner. The Sonata for flute, viola and harp is gorgeous, so ephemeral it seems hardly there. The energy of the finale is all present and correct, but again so elusive. This is, surely, a definitive performance; the recording is perfectly judged. Williencourt plays the sombre Elegie superbly; Perianes provides a different, more assertive piano sound for the Cello Sonata. Queyras’ control in this piece is definitive, as is his eloquence.