The two cello sonatas on this recording are described by their performer, Mats Lidström, as belonging to the class of truly grand sonatas, along with the F major Sonata by Brahms. They come from late nineteenth-century Paris, and that tradition of French chamber-music composition which is marked out by an excellence of musical training and a seriousness of intent.

The melodic charm of Godard's Sonata is most strongly reminiscent of comparable compositions by Schumann; the Sonata by the tragically short-lived Boëllmann is marked out rather by virtuosic demands and an extraordinary range of almost Wagnerian harmonic sideslips.