Two recitals with very different approaches to building a programme for solo violin. Viviane Hagner’s is the more conventional, placing the Bach Partita, with its celebrated Chaccone, alongside two 20th-century works that acknowledge the Chaconne’s influence – Bartók’s solo Sonata, whose opening movement refers to its tempo and rhythmic character, and the Hartmann, whose final Chaconne abandons the traditional triple metre while retaining the variation form. The Hartmann, one of four solo violin works written in his student days in 1927, is quite a find. Adopting a fashionable neo-classical idiom and revealing the composer’s immaturity in the first two movements – exercises in canon and fugue – the Suite nonetheless achieves a compelling quality through expressionistic exploitation of extreme contrasts. Hagner’s performance is suitably intense and committed. Indeed, though obviously a splendid violinist, it’s her musicianship and emotional involvement that continually stand out. Comparing her account of the Bartók with Baiba Skride’s clear, precise performance, it’s noticeable how Hagner allows smoothness and beauty of tone to take second place to her sense of the music’s dynamic and expressive demands. Similarly, in the Bach, she makes us aware of the music’s grand scale and demonstrates its expressive potential without worrying about modifying her tone to suit ideas of Baroque style. It’s a pity she omits repeats in several movements, but the Chaconne, with its powerful sense of line, is a fine achievement.

The Canadian violinist Angèle Dubeau has a history of exploring the byways of the repertoire. This recital takes Locatelli as the starting-point for a personal exploration of the virtuoso tradition, and has unearthed some gems. The Glick, on the surface quite conventional, develops a most original haunting quality, the Piazzolla Tango-Etudes are entertaining, elegant and delicately sensuous, and Ridout’s Ferdinand the Bull, given with alternative French and English narrations, cleverly uses the tricks of the 19th-century virtuoso violinist’s armoury to strong and humorous illustrative effect. It’s not, perhaps, a programme one would wish often to revisit, but Dubeau performs it all with terrific verve and style. The DVD doesn’t show her playing; we just see bigger and better reproductions of the booklet’s artwork.