Locatelli recordings often come in the form of complete opus numbers, so it makes a nice change to encounter a more selective release mixing works from three different publications, the Concerti grossi, Opp 1 (1721) and 7 (1741), and the Violin Concertos, Op 3 (1733). A more complete picture could have emerged if room had been found for a work from the sinfonia-like Op 4 Introduttioni teatrali, but the beauties of the music we do get here justify the album’s title, ‘Il virtuoso, il poeta’. The striking and unusual opening of Op 1 No 11 – an emotionally taut high violin line striding grandly out over stoically punched-out orchestral chords – is the sort of start to a programme that immediately makes you want to hear more, especially when played with the keening intensity Isabelle Faust brings. A concerto of Corellian refinement follows, if with an extra touch of tight energy and contrapuntal decoration.

Op 7 No 6 is even more individual: a kind of instrumental cantata in which a solo violin employs vocal stylings to portray Ariadne’s abandonment on the island of Naxos. It’s highly original stuff, and the performers give it their all through the twists and turns of Ariadne’s slumber, agitation, rage and weeping, although their drawn-out commitment risks loss of tension and structural coherence. Their long final chord, fading into the distance like Theseus’s ship, is memorable, but perhaps Margaret Faultless, Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Challenge Classics, 12/05) strike a better overall balance between emotional vulnerability and musical momentum.

Then there are the more Vivaldian violin concertos, published under the title L’arte del violino and famous for the dazzlingly virtuoso cadenzas – all ferocious bariolages and dog-whistle high notes – that ‘the 18th-century Paganini’ inserted as opportunities to show off. I confess I have often found them tiresome in the past, but then not many violinists have coped with their technical difficulties as well as Faust while also managing to integrate them so convincingly into the overall energy of their host movements. The programme rounds off with a Christmas ‘Pastorale’ from Op 1 that could hardly show its Corellian pedigree more clearly.

Faust plays throughout with a rich grainy tone, sweetened where necessary by potent but tasteful vibrato, and the strings of Il Giardino Armonico are alert to her lively mind and that of their director Giovanni Antonini. Together they find an enticing balance between the suave elegance and energetic bubble of Locatelli’s music.