Turina’s two numbered violin sonatas date from 1929 and 1933 34, either side – by a couple of years – of his 50th birthday. The First is to all intents and purposes a sonatina, its three compact movements a ‘sonata form almost without development’, an Aria and a Rondo. Its lively and characterful music is overshadowed by the altogether more involving Second and by the much earlier Sonata española (1908), which Turina withdrew after a couple of performances as a ‘complete mistake’. It isn’t.

Turina’s imposing suite El poema de una sanluqueña (1924) – of which there is only one other available recording currently – would not quite fit on the disc but it is a shame the excellent Variaciones clásicas (1932) – perhaps a study for the Second Sonata’s opening theme-and-variations – was omitted, and we have instead Heifetz’s rather ordinary transcription of La oración del torero. The late Homenaje a Navarra (1945), a brief Sarasate-based fantasia, concludes the disc, serving as an encore to the main programme, perhaps.

Betül Soykan is currently an assistant professor of violin at Wichita State University but gained her doctorate in Georgia (USA) with a dissertation on the Turina sonatas and ‘selected violin works’. Her knowledge and understanding of the music is clear in every bar and she has a most sympathetic accompanist in Anatoly Sheludyakov. Soykan’s intonation at times is rather edgy, especially in the early Sonata española and the Heifetz, so overall this does not displace David Peralta Alegre and Aná Sanchez Donate (Verso, 8/07), still available as download only. Centaur’s sound is good, though the players seem a little lost in the acoustic of Georgia University’s Ramsey Concert Hall.