We tend to have an unhealthy reverence towards Beethoven, says Nicola Benedetti in the notes to her new recording of his Violin Concerto. He did, after all, write this now-venerated concerto largely on the fly, for a soloist whose party piece was playing the violin upside down.

So it’s apt that Benedetti, Aurora and their conductor Nicholas Collon have recorded an interpretation that’s buoyant, warmly affectionate and at times just a little tongue-in-cheek. You’d expect playfulness in the last movement, but it’s there to some extent throughout, even in Benedetti’s weightless playing of the slow movement. There are striking moments nodding to historical authenticity – the drum, with sticks hard as nails, at the very start, and the vibrato-less strings in the introduction to the slow movement. The drum becomes unusually important, announcing the first-movement cadenza with a huge roll and then joining Benedetti in a rollicking cadenza adapted from Beethoven’s piano version.

The recording was made in studio conditions but with all involved playing from memory, as is Aurora’s trademark. Does that make a difference in an audio-only context? Perhaps – there’s certainly a sense of freedom, of phrasing that isn’t bound by bar lines. In any case, the result is music of irresistible ebullience.

Listen on Apple Music (above) or Spotify