Sibelius’s Two Pieces, Op 77, were on my wish list for recording projects in the composer’s anniversary year, so it’s good to see them here. Even better that Nicolas Dautricourt’s recording as a whole offers such a diverting picture of the composer’s works for violin with either piano or orchestra without feeling the need to include the Concerto.

Bravo: we don’t need another Concerto recording for a while after Baiba Skride’s recent winner. But I wish Skride had found room for the prayerful Op 77 pieces, spiritual cousins to the Op 69 Serenades that she plays with such touching fragility. Dautricourt can’t quite match her there and, geographical cliché notwithstanding, the Spanish Orquestra Vigo 430 can’t resist the urge to heat things up (the music benefits from the opposite). The Op 77 pieces sound a touch hurried, Dautricourt grandstanding just a little, with pronounced vibrato and arching phrase shapes. But we hear the lovely harp, and Dautricourt always conveys feeling.

That goes for everything else here. But sometimes that feeling gets the better of Dautricourt as he digs deep into his instrument again and again in the Humoresques (the elfin Vilde Frang is hard to beat here, though she offers only a selection). He can also miscue notes: ‘In the Summer’ from the Suite, Op 117, might have been retaken, but I respect Dautricourt’s stated dislike of the perfection mentality of studio recording. He brings rare stylistic nous to the Five Pieces, Op 81 – a true salon feeling in the Mazurka, and he adapts his tone with skill in the Waltz’s tiny development section – even if Jaakko Kuusisto offers more precision and lightness. A nice disc, though La Dolce Volta’s ‘luxury item’ presentation doesn’t stretch to notes on the music. Fair enough, perhaps, when you can log on to sibelius.fi for expert piece-by-piece commentary.