The six Solo Violin Sonatas of Eugène Ysaÿe were written for the six great violin virtuosos of his day: Szigeti, Thibaud, Enescu, Kreisler, and the less well known Mathieu Crickboom and Manuel Quiroga. They are still held close to the hearts of violinists who seek to defeat the technical challenges that often see them commandeered for flashy performances by prodigies not ready to apprehend their full depth. To that end, the best recordings are usually those that sense the imminent threat latent in the relationship between the Bach that is either referenced or directly quoted, and Ysaÿe’s own decaying version of it. Bach haunts theses sonatas, rather than inhabits them, and so to approach them in a wholly emotional way, as Yang does, may be considered by some to miss the inherent creepiness that makes them so overwhelmingly effective.

But that is to air and then put to one side any potentially negative points about what is a display of remarkable playing. As is absolutely necessary with these pieces, the tuning is perfect, and it is a mature, assertive and compelling performance that honours these sonatas as much more than the study pieces they are often labelled. Each sonata is distinctly of its own character: the sinuous playing she displays in Sonata No 4 for Fritz Kreisler (holding in mind the masculine del Gesù violin he was playing at the time of this work’s composition), for instance, is more subtly wrought in Sonata No 3 for the complex George Enescu. It is a beautifully polished recording, with the only element playing against it being the existence of the superlative versions of Tai Murray and Thomas Zehetmair.