I’ve long wondered why Grieg’s violin sonatas aren’t up there with those of Brahms in the affections of players. It wasn’t so long ago that Vilde Frang and Michail Lifits reminded us of the genius of the youthful Grieg, with a compelling performance of the First Sonata. Now along come two recordings of all three works, with markedly different approaches. On Dynamic, the two Russian artists’ direct, overtly romantic interpretations are best suited to the Third Sonata – a glorious outpouring of Grieg’s maturity, the folk aspect completely melded with his own style. But there are two aspects of this disc that bother me: the over-reverberant acoustic and violin-playing that sometimes comes across as a triumph of drama over subtlety, particularly in the Allegretto quasi andantino of the First Sonata and the opening movements of the Second and Third.

The German/Austrian duo on Ars tend to be more understated but there’s sometimes a studied quality which can sound overly fussy. The opening movement of No 1, for instance, arguably benefits from a faster, more supple approach than is on offer here – precisely what Frang provides in abundance. And in the Second Sonata Hagai Shaham provides a more compelling option than either of the two new versions (though I’m less taken with his overly serious First Sonata) – particularly for the way he conveys the strangeness of the slow opening prior to its explosion of high spirits, and for the soaring beauty of tone in the slow movement. In the finale, with its stomping rhythm, Shaham treads a convincing middle-ground whereas the Ars version is too timid and the Dynamic duo lack subtlety.

In the Third Sonata, there is tough if sonically elderly competition from the Kreisler/Rachmaninov version, which pitches the rhetoric of the first movement to perfection and is spellbinding in the second. But if it has to be modern-day performances, then Vilde Frang is the answer in No 1 and Shaham is pretty impressive in Nos 2 and 3. And let’s hope Frang has plans to complete the set in the near future.