Many Baroque violinists have accepted the challenge of unaccompanied Bach and there's a large range of different approaches to compare. The character of Jacqueline Ross's performances may relate to the violin she plays, an Andrea Amati from 1570. Whether due to the instrument's age, the way it's set up, or how it's played (or a combination of these) the sound is most distinctive - sweet but slightly shallow, and with upper partials that emphasise the “stringiness”. Sometimes, indeed, and especially in the First Sonata, I wished she would dig into the string more - her light, skipping bow in the final Presto fails to communicate the music's full force and brilliance. More often, however, I found myself admiring the graceful melodic quality; her sensitive phrasing of the Second Sonata's beautiful Andante is a high point.

In the Partita, Ross's airy style is particularly successful, nowhere more so than in the opening Allemanda, whose stately dotted rhythms and awkward chords often sound like hard work but which fall into place here as part of an elegant, poised piece. Only in the final Tempo di Borea and its Double does the vitality of the performance flag a little. Other recordings on the Baroque violin have different virtues: John Holloway's powerful, impulsive rhetoric; or Rachel Podger's, whose account is the most purely beautiful, with its full, clear tone and extraordinarily precise left-hand technique. Ross may not match either of these at their own game but her view is an individual and appealing one.