I much enjoyed Monica Huggett's first disc of Mozart's violin concertos (9/94), and its successor is, if anything, even finer. She responds with spontaneous freshness to the grace, wit and vernal innocence of music that is too often prey to metropolitan slickness and sophistication. Immediately in the opening movement of K216 Huggett captivates with her sweet, subtly coloured tone, her delicately articulated passagework and her vivid feeling both for the music's youthful exhilaration and its moments of lyrical repose—listen, for instance, to the vocal expressiveness she brings to the cantabile theme in the development (4'38" ff). If you favour the kind of luscious vibrato and seamless sostenuto that, say, Perlman, Zukerman or Stern bring to the Adagio, you may be disappointed by Huggett's reading. For me, though, it is all the more moving for its intimacy, tonal purity (as throughout, vibrato is sparingly but tellingly applied) and natural flexibility of phrase, with Huggett's minute care for detail balanced by an eloquent command of the longer line. In the finale I especially relished her agility and rhythmic buoyancy (the lighter period bow paying particular dividends here), her apt and witty improvised 'lead-ins' and, again, her keen sense of colour and character—the slightly withdrawn tone-quality she brings to the E minor episode, for instance (1'40"), or the hint of parody behind the pathos in the G minor Andante (from 3'14").

The D major is equally successful. In the first movement I was again struck by the imagination with which Huggett shapes and articulates the bravura semiquaver passages, and by her subtle pliancy in the lyrical music. The Andante, so often indulged, has a natural, easy flow with Huggett deftly pointing the coquettish grace of the second subject (1'42"); and the finale is done with a delightful feeling for the dance—in the tiptoeing elegance of the opening or the eager spring of the jig-like episodes, with their quick-witted interplay between soloist and orchestra.