Any disc calling itself “complete” anything, especially when that anything is Baroque music, is inviting argument from the anoraks. This one rather makes a point of it, so for the record it offers a different selection from the “Complete Violin Sonatas” proposed by Andrew Manze and Richard Egarr on Harmonia Mundi, omitting the works of dubious authorship included in the original “Op 1” publications of John Walsh, but choosing to adopt HWV367 (normally assumed to be for recorder) and to add a couple of extra miscellaneous items in the short Fantasia, HWV406, a Sonatina from the 1737 version of Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, and the moto perpetuo Allegro for solo violin, HWV407.

There. As for the performances, they are neat, stylish, and enlivened by some smart continuo-playing. Butterfield’s interpretative approach may be low-key compared to Manze but it is lively and intelligent none the less, never failing to respond in its own assured way to the music’s rhetorical flow. His tone has a delicate quality with a touch of astringency here and there – most of all in the Queen-of-Sheba-like HWV358, which seems to present the toughest tuning problems – but there are also numerous places where a modest but elegant vibrato brings pleasing sweetness to proceedings. If the caperings of Manze and Egarr are a little too much for you, this may well be one to try.