An unexpected pleasure. I don't remember what made me click my mouse on the début CD of Sophia Jaffé, but it certainly wasn't because I had read or heard of this young Berlin-born violinist. Probably it was the selection of works on the CD -- eclectic, but not hackneyed. So we have the Four Pieces by Josef Suk, the Bach E major partita for solo violin, Ysaÿe's second solo sonata, and Beethoven's Op 96 sonata. This is the only recording of the Suk four pieces I posses bar one by Ginette Neveu that I have loved since the original LP came to me back in the 1950s.

Miss Jaffé is impressive. A marvellously deft right arm. Strangely, the four works on this 78 minute CD could almost have been recorded by four different violinists, since Jaffé is very good at varying her approach, sound and style to suit the different composers and the different periods. Only in the Beethoven Op 96 (very well played) did I feel she sounded slightly "conventional". But the Ysaÿe and Bach were joys to listen to, and the Suk yielded little to my cherished Ginette Neveu recordings. Why are these Suk pieces not played more often? The fourth piece -- Burleska -- temporarily found favour with violinists as a virtuoso encore piece, but otherwise performances seem to be rare. Probably what first attracted me to Jaffé's CD. But I received a lot more pleasure than I had bargained for! If Miss Jaffé manages to pick a similarly enterprising programme for a second CD, I'll be there.