Accomplished solo pianists do not always make good accompanists. And when you see that the lady in question intends to play with the piano lid fully raised, you wonder whether the balance with the cellist is going to be satisfactory.

Such worries turned out to be totally unfounded at Friday’s British Music Society (BMS) event. Katya Apekisheva is a pianist of immense versatility: despite a dazzling technique, she never once stole the spotlight from Jamie Walton, her equally gifted partner, in works by Beethoven, Bloch, Janacek and Franck.

Walton is well known as founder-director of the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival (next year’s is August 16-29). He is capable of luscious, resonant tone. Here, however, he was mainly a model of crisp restraint. Miss Apekisheva followed suit.

Beethoven’s Fourth Cello Sonata, Op 102 No 1, dating from July 1815, was dedicated to Countess Erdödy, with whom he enjoyed a playful, if platonic, relationship. This was amply borne out by the frisky cat-and-mouse finale, where the players toyed with one another’s motifs.

In Bloch’s wistful From Jewish Life, Walton resisted the temptation to step away from smoothly tender tone that was all the more hypnotic for its reserve. The duo surfed Janacek’s narrative waves in Pohádka (Fairy tale) with a new spontaneity.

But in Franck’s sonata – originally for violin – they really threw care to the winds, conjuring real fire from the opening and fireworks in the finale. Another BMS coup.