If the violin is the tempestuous, attention-hogging soprano of the string world, the viola is the mezzo – gently melancholic, often found lurking in the shadows just beyond the violin’s spotlight. With this album, Lawrence Power asks a question: what would happen if the viola took centre-stage, stepping forward not just for high-minded sonatas and concertos but for precisely the kind of bravura concert pieces so beloved by violinists?

The answer may not offer the most satisfying recital programme, but it does shed light on some little-known and still-less-often performed repertoire, giving the character-actor of the string family a bold new starring role in the process.

Glance down the repertoire list for Fin de Siècle and you get a thrillingly wide-angle view on a period of French music too often distilled down to just Debussy and Ravel, with maybe a smattering of Chausson if you’re lucky. Henri Büsser, Georges Hüe, Léon Honnoré, Lucien Durosoir – the names are as fragrant as their music, whether it’s Büsser’s episodic Appassionato – an ear-seizing opener that packs both high-wire angst and reflective ennui into its barely five-minute span – Hüe’s moody sonata-in-miniature Thème Varié, with its wistful theme and highly characterised sequence of variations, or the showy excesses of Honnoré’s Morceau de Concert.

The titles of these works may suggest dutiful formal exercises – Thème Varié, Pièce, Morceau de Concert, Concertstück, but the music behind these stern covers is anything but earnest. That’s both a delightful surprise and a problem for the larger structural unity and drama of the disc.

Taken as a whole Fin de Siècle can feel like a series of encores without a main event. All the pieces come in at under 10 minutes and the effect of so many miniatures is a little evanescent. That said, there are some highlights: the song-without-words that is Hahn’s Soliloque et Forlane, Debussy’s lovely Beau Soir, its original vocal line taken so expressively by Power’s viola, and – best of all – Enescu’s attractive Concertstück, packed with colour and technical invention.

Power carves out all the fleshy goodness from these works, digging deep into melodies with tone that sings. Pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips matches him surge for surge and throb for throb, and together the duo conjure a Parisian salon in all its gilded, bel epoque glory, giving what are often competition pieces a real emotional gravitas. Just add a chaise longue and a world-weary expression and you have a heady afternoon of listening here.