What an utterly captivating release this is, with three consummate performers recreating a Parisian fin de siècle salon in which the mandolin takes centre stage. Paul Spark’s substantial and Hélène Cao’s shorter but no less informative booklet essays set the scene, tracing the history of the Neapolitan mandolin from the 1740s to the 1930s – but with particular attention paid to the second wave of ‘mandolin mania’ that swept France following the Paris Exposition of 1878.

Here are legendary luthiers such as the Vinaccia family. Celebrated virtuosi like Giuseppe Silvestri, Jean Pietrapertosa and the Cottin brothers. The inexorable rise of the Estudiantina (plucked string ensemble). The countless mandolin methods and compositions published to feed a voracious amateur market. And, of course, the poets and composers including Verlaine, Debussy and Fauré, who were seduced by the spell of the mandolin’s sound and its perfumed evocations of an idealised past.

Read the full review at Gramophone.