Prior to ‘Ciaccona’ landing on my desk, had someone mooted the idea of an album of solo violin music of today, programmed alongside the JS Bach repertoire that inspired it, then Ilya Gringolts would have been at the top of my fantasy wish list of possible artists. A consummate period-performance exponent who’s equally known for his identifying and championing of the best of new music, Gringolts isn’t just a safe pair of hands for such a project. He’s also an exciting one, which this recording illustrates eloquently.

The top line regarding these modern-Baroque juxtapositions, though, is that ultimately – and refreshingly – it’s the modern music that gets to play first fiddle. So first up we have the intense, nostalgia-heavy Drei kleine Szenen written by Heinz Holliger in 2014 for Isabelle Faust: ‘Ciacconina’ with its requirement for the violinist to engage, Hungarian folk-style, in polyphonic duet with the violin, which Gringolts does with otherworldly panache; ‘Geisterklopfen’ with its variety of percussive sounds, tricky left-hand work and array of bowing articulation, all of which is puckishly and ear-prickingly rendered here; then ‘Musette funèbre’, channelling the Armenian duduk (a double-reed wooden instrument) via melancholic singing sighs that see the octave divided into 46 tones.

Next on the menu is Catalan composer Roberto Gerhard’s virtuoso and stylistically varied Chaconne, penned in 1959 for Yfrah Neaman, beginning with a four-note chord honouring the famous Bach Chaconne in D minor, its 12 movements using Gerhardt’s own melodic spin on 12-note technique (and look to Gringolts’s engaging booklet notes for a detailed yet easily digestible lowdown on how Gerhard has worked his 12-note rows).

Then, finally, there’s Brice Pauset’s 2008 work for David Grimal, Kontrapartita. Each of its seven movements is inspired by a particular movement from Bach’s Solo Violin Partitas and Gringolts presents each movement alongside its respective Bach inspiration, playing the whole on Baroque set-up. The fluidity with which he ping-pongs us back and forth across the centuries feels like a proper joyride. I love, for instance, the boldness with which he proclaims the Pauset Preludio’s triumphant concluding flourish to a high E, followed by the quicksilver dancing steps as he has Bach’s E major Preludio catch that E and tumble it back downwards in its own burst of trumpet-like sunshine. The links between each pair aren’t always so obvious and this only adds to the overall magic. Jumping to the concluding Ciaccona followed by Bach’s D minor Chaconne, and I’ve found myself appreciating the extent to which the Paucet informs the Bach rather than the other way around: in Gringolts’s readings, Pauset’s airy textures, harmonics, lightning-fast and gossamer-weighted runs find their reflection in Bach’s airy articulation and comparatively up-tempo fluttering, dancing lilt. The perfect finish to a listening experience that’s been absorbing and rewarding in equal measure.