Jiří Vodička is the young soloist of the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra in Ostrava and has already made a considerable name for himself as a virtuoso among those looking slightly under the radar. Although ‘Violino solo’ contains many of the showpieces to be expected – the third of the Ysaÿe Sonatas, written for Jacques Thibaud, for instance, and the Kreisler Recitative und Scherzo – there are a number of gems here that are so well played that to be introduced to them in such flawless conditions is a real gift. The Grand Caprice on Schubert’s ‘Der Erlkönig’ by Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (probably the most natural heir to Paganini, both as virtuoso and composer for violin) is a particularly vivid sketch of the marriage of musical spectacle to the complicated techniques such as polyphonic writing and scordatura that both Paganini and Ernst owed as much to Biber and Schmelzer of more than a century before as to each other; as is the first recording of the Short Variations on a Theme of Paganini by Roman Haas, a Czech composer whose directness in his approach to the virtuoso possibilities of the violin expounds the same artistic honesty that Vodička does in his performances of everything on this disc.

As can often be the case with discs made primarily for virtuoso effect and the white-knuckle ride of listening to it, it has been recorded closely, with a resulting sound that becomes relentless quickly. That is more of a shame with this performance than it might be with others, as this is the sort of recital disc whose attention to detail and technical polish has the strength to bear minutely close examination on complete listenings.