Did Paganini play in tune? We’ll never know, of course, but he certainly set himself extraordinary challenges, and with most players we have to accept a degree of impurity. Not so with Kristóf Baráti; the passages in harmonics and high double-stops are really correct, allowing the music to sound beautiful as well as extraordinary. He’s given lively, well balanced orchestral support. However, of recent recordings of the First Concerto, Hilary Hahn’s is, I think, to be preferred (11/06); she’s just as accurate and is a more imaginative player, with a greater expressive range. But if you want Paganini’s two best-known concertos together Baráti is thoroughly recommendable.

The Dynamic Paganini box is announced as the first complete edition of his music with orchestra, though I’ve noticed one or two minor omissions. Massimo Quarta’s accounts of the concertos feature admirably bright, euphonious playing from the Genoa orchestra. Quarta isn’t quite in the same technical league as Baráti or Hahn but he shows real virtuosity. The incompletely preserved concertos in A minor and E minor are given in excellent new versions by Francesco Fiore, and the First Concerto appears in E flat, not D – Paganini tuned his violin up a semitone to sound more brilliant.

Quarta plays on the composer’s own Guarneri, but his modern style, strongly projected with intense vibrato, doesn’t suggest the early 19th century. Salvatore Accardo’s lighter tone is more plausible, and his graceful way with the aria at the start of “I palpiti” (to take one of many examples) gives a real insight into the nature of Paganini’s special appeal. He doesn’t always surmount the unusual challenges of those pieces played exclusively on the G string, though he captures their heroic style with great aplomb.

There are a couple of entertaining curiosities: a miniature concerto for horn, bassoon and orchestra, and Le Couvent du Mont St Bernard, with wordless male chorus. And the two “extra” concerto recordings are fascinating: Ricci’s live account of the Fourth Concerto is quite rough in places but somehow gives a sense of the sheer amazement Paganini was able to elicit, and Menuhin in 1934, at his youthful peak, is confident and commanding in musicianship and technique.