Marie-Elisabeth Hecker / Martin Helmchen BRAHMS Cello Sonatas

When Brahms played through his First Cello Sonata with its dedicatee, Josef Gänsbacher, the cellist apparently complained that he couldn’t hear himself over the piano. ‘Lucky you,’ muttered Brahms. There’s no such problem on this new disc from Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Martin Helmchen. As Hecker calmly, eloquently shapes her low-lying opening melody, Helmchen’s off beat piano chords don’t so much drive the rhythm as hang from her line – helped by a recording that places the cello ever so slightly forward.

That’s no bad thing. Brahms may have followed Beethoven’s cue in describing these pieces as sonatas for piano and cello, rather than the other way around, but there’s no question that balance can be an issue. Not here; both instruments come through clear and unforced, enabling Hecker to take the lead in shaping a performance of the First Sonata that’s essentially lyrical and poetic. She doesn’t dominate, mind. The booklet-notes make much of the fact that Helmchen and Hecker are husband and wife, but this is real duo playing, with each player stepping forwards or conceding the musical argument without any grandstanding. That pays rich dividends in the more extrovert and fantastical Second Sonata (a sister work, in spirit, to the Third Symphony). Helmchen’s majestic swell of sound in the centre of the Adagio affettuoso makes as much musical and colouristic sense as Hecker’s forceful pizzicatos.

Any new recording of these two sonatas is up against competition ranging from du Pré and Barenboim to Alban Gerhardt and Markus Groh, and 53 minutes of music is not exactly generous (others offer Brahms transcriptions or Schumann cello music). But if you’re after a thoughtful and musicianly pairing of these two works alone, you won’t be disappointed. (Richard Bratby / Gramophone)