The 19th century saw some famous collaborations between composer and violinist, and this programme neatly brings together two of them. Anyone familiar with the recordings Sarasate made at the start of the 1900s will recognise his style – elegant, mercurial and supremely fluent – in Saint-Saëns’s violin music, much of it written for him. Tedi Papavrami, while not attempting to sound like Sarasate, adopts something of his graceful manner; his alert, lively approach is just right for conveying the music’s inventive, often improvisatory character. He makes the Rondo into something truly capricious, with even the tender moments and the rhetorical gestures retaining a playful air. The Concerto, too, gets an extrovert performance; each episode vividly characterised, yet without excessive intensity. Played like this, one can imagine it as a ballet score accompanying a fairyland scenario.

Ysaÿe’s and Chausson’s world is more sombre, but still evokes a magical, legendary atmosphere. It’s most interesting to hear the Chausson alongside the work that inspired it; Ysaÿe’s Poème isn’t as concentrated or as haunting as Chausson’s but it’s more overtly dramatic, rising to a powerful, Wagnerian climax. Papavrami is able to find a different, darker range of tone colours for these two works, and again the orchestra responds sympathetically, while remaining Gallic in its emphasis on differentiated rather than blended sounds. A most enjoyable CD, and strongly recommended.