In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the craft of transcription (or ‘arrangement’) reached its zenith. Many popular works – for instance, favourite arias from operas – were offered to the public in domestically playable versions for solo keyboard, or else in chamber music formats frequently featuring the flute, violin, or another treble melody instrument.

Title pages of published works often specified alternative performing forces, and Mozart himself sometimes reworked his own music for different instruments. Thus taking its place in a now somewhat buried tradition that has its roots in the composer’s own time, this cherishable recording by LSO principal oboist Olivier Stankiewicz reimagines three of his best-loved violin sonatas for oboe and piano.