He built his reputation on the violin: writing for it, playing it to a level that invited comparisons with Paganini. But the 19th century Belgian musician Henri Vieuxtemps also composed several works for the viola. And, while you’d struggle to find any transcendent masterpieces among them, their obscurity appeals to ambitious players hoping to make a dent in the viola repertory.

Such as Timothy Ridout, winner of last year’s Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. At only 21 years old, this British player understandably has a way to go in terms of refining his palette. What he does offer is a gorgeous tone, a thoughtful approach to phrasing and an infectious sense of impetuosity, which puts him in a good position to tackle the centrepiece on this programme, the Sonata in B flat, Op 36. Here is music that, in its brand of lyricism and understated ingenuity, ploughs a similar furrow to Mendelssohn. It needs a serenely introspective performance, and gets one. Ridout makes the most of the viola’s cellistic timbre in the first movement and the operatic sway of the second movement barcarolle. For all that his reading can’t match the subtlety of some competitors’, most notably Tabea Zimmermann’s, there is plenty to enjoy here in terms of poetic flow.

But that can only go so far in the unfinished Sonata in B flat, Op 60, a work that needs a lot of extra help. Even Ridout’s sense of propulsion can’t sustain us through a scale-filled second movement that, without more meticulous contouring, starts to sound like a viola study. Where he and his sensitive pianist Ke Ma are at their most convincing is in the short character works: the soulful cantabile lines of the Élégie, Op 30, and the exotically perfumed La nuit, Vieuxtemps’s transcription of Félicien David’s Le désert. He relishes the technical showmanship of the Capriccio in C minor and the exuberance of the neo-baroque Étude. Evidently this viola player is capable of generating strong colours. With time, he will hopefully explore more of the gradations between them.