‘I rather assumed that the sound would be unique right from the start’, recalled Robert Schumann of Paganini’s playing. ‘Nothing of the kind! He began with a tone so thin, so small! Then effortlessly, almost imperceptibly, he cast his magnetic chains.’ But that was a live performance. Recordings make different demands, and from the opening flourish of Paganini’s Variations on an air by Paisiello, Rachel Barton Pine’s tone is lustrous. The dramatic timing of each gesture, the firm, burnished middle register, the gleaming, liquid evanescence of Paganini’s stratospheric flights: it’s all there.

Virtuosity is a minimum entry requirement in this repertoire. But any violinist who tackles Paganini also has to reach some accommodation with the invisible presence and peerless charisma of the man himself. Pine calls her collection ‘Bel canto’, and that’s what she gives us in her performances of his 24 Caprices. Don’t expect the hectic, larger-than-life bravura of, say, Itzhak Perlman’s 1972 account (though Pine cites it as an inspiration). Pine is principally interested in the musical qualities of these extraordinary, endlessly inventive miniatures, and there’s hardly a moment here where you get any sense of technique taking precedence over expression.

Instead, Pine finds a wonderfully rich range of colours. Double-stopped octaves can almost vanish into the melody (as in No 7), give a fanfare figure a heroic echo (Nos 19 and 23) or throw an eerie shadow like some operatic mad scene (No 15) – as the music demands. Her characterisation is beguiling: Pine lets minor-key melodies droop to a finish, plays teasingly with the rhythmic sideslips of No 13 and makes the famous left-hand pizzicato in No 24 burst like popping candy. And, of course, she sings her heart out with a big, juicy operatic vibrato in the amoroso No 21.

The set spreads over two discs. Pine is generous with repeats (Caprice No 4 extends to nearly 11 minutes, against Perlman’s 6'24"), and characterful performances of two more Paganini miniatures plus her own delightful variations on God Defend New Zealand (an encore piece for an antipodean tour) serve as encores: just as entertaining, and every bit as warmly communicative.