Like fellow guitarist Paul Galbraith, Timo Korhonen finds much of interest in the numerological and theological correspondences in Bach’s music for solo violin, and allows in his interpretations for an emotional narrative of sorts. Galbraith, the more beautiful player of the two, is also the more interpretatively rigorous, seeing the six Sonatas and Partitas as an “instrumental gospel story in triptych form, telling of the Birth, Passion and Resurrection of Christ”. Additionally Galbraith, who plays an eight-string guitar, is the more extravagant, arranging the music after the fashion of lute transcriptions (in which area Nigel North reigns supreme); Korhonen, like the superb Frank Bungarten, adds nothing while being faithful to both violin and guitar idioms.

The results on this second volume, which contains the three Partitas, are mixed. Korhonen’s phrasing and articulation are intelligent and musical, and the execution is clean and crisp. Sometimes the downstroke of the bow is imitated, as in the opening chords of the B minor Bourée; at other times, as in the Double of the B minor Allemande, a more flowing, guitaristic approach is adopted. But the tone can also be hard, the attack violent, as in the almost manic Corrente of the D minor Partita – in stark contrast to the gentle, spacious Sarabanda which follows.

There are more virtues than vices to be found here, to be sure, but the roots of both can be inferred from this statement of Korhonen’s: “A Baroque composer describes, whereas a Romantic composer expresses.”