Completed fragments are curious things. Are they there to render playable music that would otherwise be lost to us? If so, why do we need to hear the music that isn’t there? Are they supposed to give us an idea of what a great composer might have done with promising material? But isn’t that unknowable and subjective, the results to a certain extent random? Or are they the product of a musicologist’s desire to understand their subject by getting up close and personal? But is there really a need for those then to be performed, recorded and sold? How many times will people want to listen to Mozart that isn’t Mozart?

There are no simple answers, of course, but I can say that the fruits of Timothy Jones’s engagement with Mozart’s unfinished violin sonatas make pleasant listening. A veteran Mozart-completer, Jones here creates from the abandoned openings of a fantasia and three sonata allegros (two alternatives for each of these) whole movements that are convincingly Mozartian in their melodic grace, harmonic direction and textural make-up, such that if you were listening with an innocent ear you probably wouldn’t suspect that you weren’t hearing the real thing. That’s quite an achievement, and indeed only very occasionally did I feel I had heard something not quite right (which is more than can be said for certain pieces -– for instance the dubious-sounding Odense Symphony – that have been claimed by some as authentic). Furthermore, the actual Mozart material here is high-quality stuff from the 1780s that is well worth the encounter, not least the broodingly emotional, CPE Bach-like Fantasia. So rest assured, you can sit back and enjoy.

The performances also add to the fun. Rachel Podger’s cycle of the complete Mozart violin sonatas with Gary Cooper from the 2000s was widely praised, and it is small surprise that she shows the same natural musicality and joyous spirit here. Christopher Glynn, playing on a copy of a Graf fortepiano that is later and bigger than we usually hear in Mozart, is a strong and characterful partner. There are some minor moments when the duo-partnership sounds as if it needs more time to mature, but for what will likely be the only recording of this music, nobody could really complain