Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye and Fauré’s Dolly are two of the highlights in this bewitching programme of music often associated with childhood—works which amply reward the care lavished on them by Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne in these exquisite accounts.

Artist, collector, patron—dilettante? It has always been easy, and unfair, to disparage the achievements of those who do not have to suffer financially for their art. And it was a family inheritance which guaranteed security and independence for Gustave Caillebotte, meaning that for most of his short life (he died in 1894, aged just 45) he not only had no need to worry about earning an income from his own work, but was able to fund exhibitions of his contemporaries and to support individual artists, Monet being a notable beneficiary. (Caillebotte's range of interests was by no means restricted to the fine arts, extending to stamp collecting, racing yachts and textile design.) The extensive collection of paintings he bequeathed in his will to the French government reads like a who’s who of the artists of the time—Monet, Renoir, Manet, Cézanne et al—although it's worth noting that successive administrations refused many of the works on the terms offered, Impressionism still officially regarded with suspicion.

There's something about his portrait of the two sturdy oarsmen, boating in the summer's heat, which feels particularly apt for the cover of our French duets album. The programme may consist largely of music written for children—albeit musically precocious ones—but there's no doubt that it benefits immeasurably from the care and attention which only grown-up concert pianists can supply. And it's difficult to think of more capable guides than our own two canotiers, Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis, who make it all sound so easy as they effortlessly navigate their Steinway through the deep, still waters of Debussy, Ravel & co …