Neither Bradford-born, French-domiciled Frederick Delius’s posthumous Violin Sonata in B of 1892 nor John Ireland’s First Violin Sonata of 1909 has been over-recorded, and this idea of Clare Howick’s to bring out their French qualities is a nice one. Especially when she’s punctuated them with even lesser-recorded, French-perfumed shorts from Arnold Bax and Cyril Scott. What’s more, the Delius gets things off to a good start, with a romantic, portamento-rich delivery from Howick that yet steers well clear of syrupy sentimentality, thanks to equal amounts of lean-toned poise and forward flow.

The Ireland also comes off well, its opening tempo brisk enough for the whiff of Debussy to cut through its Edwardiana (although perhaps I’m not the only one who rather guiltily enjoys the more languorous tempo that glowing-toned Lydia Mordkovitch gave it – Chandos, 11/87, 12/95); and Howick gives that latter element a further boost by, once again, her many little portamento swoops. There’s also a soulful reading of the central ‘Romance’ to be appreciated.

Less satisfying, though, is the disc’s major core repertoire offering of the Debussy Sonata. With this one, you simply don’t hear the range of colours or the moments of feather-light caprice or of liquid-mercury fluidity that you get from the best of the rest. It’s all a bit effortful. As is the concluding curiosity of Bax’s Mediterranean transcribed by Heifetz – although this isn’t entirely Howick’s fault, when not even Heifetz himself was able to sell this rather bombastic, angular confection of his (nevertheless, I’d be fascinated to see it appear as a set work at an international music competition, just to see whether someone, in the context of having a serious vested interest, could bring more lightness and nuance to it). Still, factor in some slightly rough-edged engineering and this is one that’ll be useful to have in one’s back pocket as a modern-era reminder of what Mediterranean and Cherry Ripe sound like (and the latter is nicely done), but as an end-to-end listening experience it has its weak spots.