The joys of Jean-Marie Leclair’s Violin Sonatas Op 2, published in 1728, five years after his first book of sonatas, can be found in the beauty of their melodic invention, and their expressive and surprising harmonies. Leclair takes us on unexpected journeys of landscape and scenery in his slow movements and excites with Italian energy and fire in the fast. Adrian Butterfield’s three Naxos volumes of Leclair’s Violin Sonatas, Op 1 were acclaimed as being “shaped by exquisite phrasing and studded with lovely Italianate ornamentation…so much to savour”. (Gramophone on 8.570890)