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Franz Benda was employed at the court of King Frederick the Great of Prussia, and his exceptionally expressive violin playing led Charles Burney to describe him as ‘a truly great genius’. Benda’s cantabile composing style allowed space for elaborate ornamentation during performance which was the height of fashion in this period. This world première recording reveals Benda’s authentic and often spectacular written-out ‘improvisations’ in new editions of his sonatas, re-uniting them with a violin preserved unaltered since its creation in 1735.