Arto Noras gives a spirited, expertly calculated account of the Franck sonata, assuredly balancing its weighty rhetoric against its formal originality (the key themes appear cyclically throughout the four movements). Composure and lack of affectation means that triumph is held in check for the finale, where it rightly belongs; but you’ll sense the cumulative drama of Noras’ game plan much earlier, in his terse, dogged rendering of the scherzo. Noras’ Debussy sonata misses something of the temperamental caprice of the famous Rostropovich/Britten recording from 1961. But the “commedia dell’arte”-infused wit and irony certainly is alluring, particularly in the slow movement where the cellist’s pizzicato work is dizzyingly accurate in rhythm. Fauré’s D minor sonata Op. 109 completes the deal, and the warm, naturally balanced recording (in which the piano is never over-dominant) effectively conveys the clarity and forthrightness of the performances.
