Listening to Paganini's lovely Sonata concertata, it is hard to believe it is by the same composer who is responsible for the dazzlingly brilliant 24 Caprices and the dramatic Violin Concerto No. 2. With the opening Allegro spiritoso, which serves as the first movement of this loosely structured sonata, the work hearkens to the Classical style of Mozart or Haydn, where the balance between instruments leads to a unified musical expression, glorious but simple. Indeed, this entire piece may be described as dialogic, since a lilting call-and-response theme between the guitar and violin provides the structural basis. The second movement, Adagio, contains some simple but rewarding interplay between the two instruments; at certain moments, the guitar achieves an almost improvisatory freedom of expression, dragging the more relaxed violin along with it. This paves the way for the truly danceable final movement, Rondo, in which the violin takes on a more brilliant mode of expression than before. In sum, the work represents Paganini's most intimate, relaxed, and almost playful compositional mode.

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