Mayuko Kamio, born in Osaka, Japan, but who studied also in the USA, won the 1998 Menuhin International Competition. She was the youngest artist to win this award – performing with Menuhin directing – and went on to win the gold medal in the 13th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. She plays a 1727 Stradivarius once owned by Joachim and creates with it a remarkable range of vividly glowing timbre, playing with infinite subtlety of colour and phrasing. Moreover, she has planned this ambitious recital with skill, offering six shorter concertante works which are beautifully balanced as a whole, with the gentle charm and melancholy of the two Tchaikovsky pieces ideally placed to set off against their companions. She closes the Méditation exquisitely so that the sensuous rapture of the Chausson Poème follows on perfectly to make the rich musical highlight of the programme, helped by the lovely playing of her excellent partner pianist, Vadim Gladkov.

Szymanowski’s shimmering Mythes make for another sensuous peak of feeling, full of exotic, lyrical fervour, the finale “Dryads and Pan” pictorially quite riveting. How clever, too, not to end the recital with Waxman’s sparkling Carmen Fantasy but to open with it, and immediately show her ability to catch the individual vocal quality of each of Bizet’s indelibly folksy tunes, proving once again how well French composers write Spanish melodies. Then she offers Stravinsky’s vigorously genial Pulcinella arrangement for her finale, another stream of rhythmically catchy melody that violinist and pianist share with gusto. Excellent recording makes this a debut not to be missed.