Christian Li may not yet be a familiar name to Gramophone readers but 1.8 million YouTube viewers have watched his performance in the junior finals of the 2018 Menuhin Competition in Geneva. Li, a Chinese-Australian, was the joint winner of the Junior First Prize (shared with Chloe Chua, 11) when he was just 10 years old. Decca swooped in, making him the youngest musician to record for the label. A couple of the tracks (recorded in February 2020) were even played on a three-quarter-size instrument.

Classical music has always been fascinated by prodigies and they’ve been exploited mercilessly since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was dragged around Europe by his father, Leopold. The recording industry maintains a keen eye for fresh talent. Among the wunderkind violinists who went on to have great careers are Anne-Sophie Mutter, Hilary Hahn, Yehudi Menuhin himself, of course, and Jascha Heifetz. In 1912, after accompanying the 11-year-old Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler declared: ‘We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees.’

But for every Mutter or Menuhin, dozens are forgotten, sliding into obscurity. It’s dangerous to heap pressure on to such young shoulders, so casting those famous violinists aside, it’s best to listen to this debut disc purely on its own merits. It’s a nice disc. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons may seem a hackneyed choice but they’re works Li clearly enjoys performing (he learnt the remaining three concertos after winning the Menuhin with Summer) and he plays them well. There’s a strong rhythmic pulse (he was asked to remove his shoes and socks because his foot stomps made too much noise in the recording sessions!), ornamentation is tasteful and his intonation on his 1737 Guarneri (on loan) is excellent. Summer has plenty of attack in its stormy sections, Autumn is amiable – the hunt taken at a bit of a sober canter until the percussive gunshots inject a little drama (track 9, 1'36"). The outer movements of Winter are particularly effective, with a nice sense of sul ponticello precariousness on the ice in the finale.

The Melbourne Symphony appear, from video footage of the January 2021 recording sessions, to field a small ensemble, but there’s still a quite old-fashioned, big-boned Vivaldi sound, something of a throwback to I Musici or the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in the 1970s or ’80s, with sewing-machine harpsichord tinkling busily, although the shivering ornaments that open Winter are an imaginative touch.

The playing I enjoyed most, though, came in the four bonus tracks with piano accompaniment (Timothy Young) that complete the disc. Recorded in 2020, they demonstrate Li’s expressive range. There’s a nod to his Chinese heritage in Li Zili’s Fisherman’s Harvest Song, with lashings of warm vibrato, as there is in Massenet’s ‘Méditation’. Bazzini’s La ronde des lutins is wonderfully skittish and cheeky, and there’s a stylish Tambourin chinois that would surely have delighted Kreisler himself. There’s much to enjoy here.