The repertoire itself consists of the popular Sonata concertata in A and the Op 3 Sonata No 4 in A minor, composed respectively in 1804 and 1805, when Paganini was still in his early twenties and beginning his 24 Caprices. There are also five technically and emotionally sophisticated Centone di sonate works (‘doodles’ in Paganini’s words, created out of self-borrowings and from fragments of Figaro-inspired works by others), composed around 1828 and thus coinciding with the concert tour that saw him become an international sensation.

Moving on to how it all sounds (beyond glorious), the first thing to say is that the instruments themselves feel absolutely spot-on, Biondi on a dulcet-toned gut-strung Neapolitan Gagliano violin and Pinardi on a perfectly matched c1825 Romantic guitar by Parisian makers Mauchant Frères. As for the performances, these have been prepared with Paganini’s original manuscripts and are played with an effortlessly singing mellifluousness and nonchalant virtuosity that for me eclipses the slightly spikier period elegance of the Paganini violin-and-guitar recording I might have previously turned to, from Pekka Kuusisto and Ismo Eskelinen (Ondine, 4/10). Listen to how Biondi manages to be both expansive and lightly lilting through the slightly tongue-in-cheek love-making of Centone di sonate No 6, for instance, or the skittish, sulphurous caprice of his downward tumbles and left-hand pizzicato flourishes in No 12’s Rondo (between 3'47" and 3'56"). Or, if you want to really appreciate the pair’s painstaking colourings of individual notes and the affectiveness of their rubato, listen in to No 14’s Rondo from 4'26".

Add engineering that revels in the sonorous beauty of the 19th-century hall in Valencia’s Centre Cultural La Beneficència and the whole is an indisputable cracker.