How many student cellists have fallen in love, despite themselves, with the studies of Alfredo Piatti? It’s not that they’re easy; if the works collected here prove anything, it’s precisely why Piatti (1822-1901) was known as ‘the Paganini of the cello’. It’s more that, for all his virtuoso wizardry, Piatti (who inspired Verdi to write the cello solo in the prelude to I masnadieri) had such a gloriously songful sensibility – perhaps unsurprisingly for a cellist raised in the opera house of his native Bergamo, who counted Donizetti as a family friend.

This is Adrian Bradbury’s second disc of Piatti’s operatic fantasies and as usual with this repertoire a little goes a long way, though there’s no disputing that Piatti can spin an altogether superior class of tinsel. With the inclusion of the expansive, 16-minute Rimembranze del Trovatore (and just wait until you hear what Piatti does with ‘Stride la vampa’), this is probably the disc with most appeal to non-specialists. Piatti crowns the Lucia di Lammermoor variations with eerie, whistling harmonics, and the cello makes a properly dramatic entrance in the Souvenir de Linda di Chamounix.

Bradbury is wholly alive to these touches of colour and character, as is Oliver Davies (who made the piano reductions of several of the works recorded here). His interpretations have a red-blooded, horsehair-and-rosin quality that gives them the immediacy of a live performance, nicely capturing the physical thrill of Piatti’s often spectacular fireworks as well as the wholly fitting bel canto warmth of Bradbury’s more lyrical playing. The booklet notes, also by Bradbury, are excellent: if this is the sort of thing you like, you won’t find it done with more conviction.