Album: Bartok / Bach, Hidden Acoustics / Ruth Palmer (Nimbus Alliance)

Three years after winning a Classical Brit Award, Palmer remains the most distinctive violinist of her generation.

In this performance of Bartok's sonata for solo violin and the Bach partita that inspired it, the focus is on the marriage between instrument and acoustic.

The match between Palmer's Stradivari and the clear glow of the Temple Church is ideal, allowing for the sharpest detail of articulation and unhurried admiration of the musical architecture. The Bartok is brazen and bruised, the Bach exquisitely poised.