Although Hilary Hahn’s DG disc devoted to Eugène Ysaÿe’s Six Solo Violin Sonatas (Recording of the Month in the August issue) strikes a special chord among my critical faculties, a couple more new contenders are well worth mentioning. Still only a teenager, the Czech violinist Daniel Matejča has already won a number of prestigious music competitions. His set of the Sonatas is very clearly focused, brilliant yet never flashy. The young Icelandic violinist Sólveig Steinórsdóttir displays a cooler countenance. Steinórsdóttir has been featured as a soloist with various orchestras in Iceland, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and regularly gives recitals and chamber music concerts in Iceland and across mainland Europe. Her tone is admirably full and she paces the music knowingly, the opening of the First Sonata especially. But turn to Hahn for comparison and the contrast between fullness and vibrancy immediately registers.

For the Second Sonata Steinórsdóttir integrates the Bachian and Dies irae motifs well and her muscular approach has plenty of impact, but Matejča seems more aware of the music’s colourful element; also in the Ballade Third Sonata, where he seems acutely mindful of the music’s heated emotional climate and potentially wide dynamic range. If I were to nominate one of the finest readings nestling among these two discs, Matejča’s Third would definitely be among them. He also does wonderfully well by the Kreislerian Fourth Sonata’s finale, with its carpal twists and turns. In the first movement of the Fifth Sonata Matejča doesn’t quite match Hahn for atmosphere but his negotiation of chords versus pizzicatos is skilful in the extreme, as is his handling of the technically demanding, Spanish-inflected Sixth Sonata. But his programme doesn’t end there. Jana Vöröšová’s Obsession II picks up where Ysaÿe’s Second Sonata left off, toying with the Dies irae motif before leaving us poised among harmonics.

Both discs are excellent in their different ways, but good as she is, Sólveig Steinórsdóttir lacks the level of individuality that distinguishes the recordings by Daniel Matejča and, most especially, Hilary Hahn.