From Emily Howard’s elegant, linear melody to Sally Beamish’s craggy soundscape, Humphreys channels Paganini’s virtuosity. She also displays playfulness and a light touch in pieces such as that by Héloïse Werner, which requires the violinist to sing to ten while playing.

Humphreys plays everything here with lovely tone, perfect intonation, and a sense of passionate belief in each work. The recorded sound is also excellent—close enough to hear the details but not so close as to be harsh.

For the climax, everything is tied together in a set of variations on the theme from Paganini's Caprice No. 24 in A minor (which also appears in full elsewhere). Each variation is by a different composer, forcing that composer to distill their style down to a 30-second soundbite, further restricted by the parameters of the Paganini theme. The results are delightful: sample the variation by Héloïse Werner for an idea! There are larger multi-movement pieces by Tom Coult and Oliver Leith, and these too are attractive. A triumphant release from Humphreys.