Poulenc never intended to write a conventional violin sonata; he once remarked that the romantic combination of singing violin and rippling piano made him want to vomit. But if you come to his solitary exercise in the genre expecting a Gallic divertissement, you're in for a surprise, too: it's a wartime work, as passionate as it is concise, and inspired by the murder of the poet Lorca. Paul and Helen Huang have its measure from the very first bar, launching themselves headlong into a performance that flashes and thunders with controlled energy.

'Mirrors' is the title of the pair's latest joint recital; the idea being to play two stormy 1940s sonatas against each other, with Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel serving as a still, quiet point of reflection (in every sense) at the centre of the programme.
It works well. Paul plays the Pärt with an almost-vibrato-free white tone and the result, between the epic drama of the Poulenc and the Prokofiev, is surprisingly poignant, and an effective contrast to the big, lustrous tone and powerful sense of drama that the two Huangs (they're not related) bring to the rest of the disc.

These are grand, ambitious readings, shot through with colour and fantasy - from Paul's tangy pizzicatos (you can tell that Prokofiev was thinking of David Oistrakh) to the eerie, distant chime of Helen's piano in the third movement of the Prokofiev. But they're never less than taut: these are tales told without a wasted note, purposeful, vivid and gripping. The boomy, slightly distant recorded sound was not to my taste but it's a price worth paying for musical storytelling of such virtuosity and conviction.