It is good to see Jean-Marie Leclair’s name appearing with increasing frequency among the lists of new recordings. Surely one of the most deserving beneficiaries of the early music revival, this is a composer who not only mixes violinistic flair with sound compositional skill and rigour, but who also achieved one of the most satisfying syntheses of the French and Italian styles of the late baroque. His fourth and last set of 12 violin sonatas, Op. 9, appeared around 1740, and is his most virtuosic. One only has to hear the double-stopping which opens Sonata No. 6, by turns frenetic and nonchalant, or the tiptoeing agility of the set of variations which closes Sonata No. 2 to realize that this is music by one of the major violinists of his day, yet such display is always at the service of music which can be both robustly constructed and, in places (such as the affetuoso third movement of Sonata No. 7), utterly charming in its lyricism.
This is the second volume of Leclair’s sonatas from the artists formerly known as the Locatelli Trio, the first volume having offered a selection from his previous, slightly more restrained Op. 5 set. Elizabeth Wallfisch, as befits one of the baroque violin’s most natural technicians, is well able to negotiate the difficulties of this music with confidence, showing no fear of a fall from her high-lying melodies or gymnastic string-crossing. Her tone is certainly on the wiry side – probably too much so for some listeners – but to set against that she has a marvellous knack of keeping a line alive from beginning to end, often by applying extra vibrato at just the right moment, and there is enormous energy and exuberance in the faster movements. Her continuo team offers a comfortable bed of support, but is also sprightly and alert when the music demands. A touch more warmth in the sound, then, and this would be baroque violin music as it was surely meant to be.'