Rachel Podger - Tutta Sola

Rachel Podger, Tutta Sola (Channel Classics)

It is twenty years since Rachel Podger's Bach Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Since then her discography has become an index of the major such work of the period with the Biber Rosary Sonatas and the Telemann Fantasias. Now she adds some lesser known works by way of filling in the background. Only two of the 34 tracks are more than four minutes long so they aren't as monumental as the Bach which are every bit the equivalent of their cello and piano cousins.

It's a well-known piece that opens the set, though, Bach's Toccata and Fugue BWV 565, perhaps his best-known piece when it's played on the organ but it's possible it was transcribed by Bach for organ from somebody else's violin piece so this move back to violin might not be so inappropriate and if it sounds strange at first, it soon doesn't.

Vilsmayr's Artificious Concentus Pro Camera is a set of ten short dances and arias full of acrobatic nuance and phrasing. There is more depth to the Fantasia in C minor by Nicola Matteis Jr., which is speculative and inward looking by turns and a highlight alongside Westhoff's Suite without bass in A major with its shimmering Prelude.

There's nothing on the same scale as the Bach Sonatas and Preludes, almost inevitably, but Rachel's agility, perhaps the best of which is saved for the Minuet by Tartini at the end. It's a slender sound in the sense of 'lithe', not 'thin' with plenty to marvel at. If the budget can afford it and you want more, I see that Alina Ibragimova has recently released the Telemann Fantasias, which are tremendous pieces. I would gladly have them as well but I have them in another recording and one can't have everything.