One has a powerful sense of Cecile Licad and Alban Gerhardt's compelling grasp of architecture...[in the Andante of No. 1] Licad's melting lines are wonderfully voiced, and we have a choice of finales - one at Faure's own controversially slow tempo, and one at the performer's preferred, faster tempo. In the Second Sonata, Gerhardt captures the first movement's exalted energy.

[Gerhardt] has the command of a very fine virtuoso...[Gerhardt and Licad] sound free as air, intellectually confident, full of verve, with niceties of balance and intensities never an issue; a convincing frame of colour, movement and sound in place for every movement...obviously the one to get. May it win friends for some excellent and still undervalued music.

From every standpoint, Gerhardt's accounts of the sonatas seem exceptional, with their assured technical mastery and uncanny depth of insight...none of [the] rival accounts will readily eclipse these sonorously authoritative new performances...Magnificent cello playing from Gerhardt, empathetically supportive accompaniments from Licad and a wonderfully natural and atmospheric recording to boot.

Alban Gerhardt's account of Fauré's two cello sonatas, both late works, repay careful listening. Like the works themselves, his playing and that of the pianist Cecile Licad is full of subtleties, the half-tones and inflections that make the chamber music of Fauré's final decade so elusive and fragile. Nothing here is forced or made to conform

They make a particularly fine duo here, working emotionally in unison, sensing the music’s contours with like mind, breathing as one...their feeling for moments of drama and repose is held in ideal equilibrium, and their pointing up of Fauré’s individual harmonic shading is judged instinctively.