Like most Mozart works, the Violin Sonata in B flat K454 sounds effortlessly simple but is, of course, anything but. Here Italian violinist, Francesca Dego and pianist Alessio Bax (also Italian) delivered it like a conversation full of engaging musical dialogue.

She plays with a smile and sets pleasingly dramatic contrasts between the dotted leggiero passages and playfully grandiloquent chords in the opening movement and her tone is admirably mellow. Together they find delicate warmth in the gentle 6|8 andante. And Dego plays – almost sings – the Allegretto as a light-as-air quasi dance while Bax (further from the audience) ripples and ripostes behind her. The effect is both charming and impressive.

Then we nipped forward a hundred years in time to the rich romance of Brahms: his Violin Sonata No I in G op 78 which dates from 1878/9. Dego makes the opening Largo – Vivace sound almost sultry in the powerful fortissimo passages. Then in the andante – connected with the death of Brahms’s godson Felix Schumann – Bax delivered the soulful piano statement at the start with appropriate poignancy which Dego amplified later in her well played double stopped section. The performance finished with a colourful account of the Allegro molto moderato.

It’s good to see and hear two relatively young musicians performing together with such intelligent cohesion. The lunchtime Wigmore Hall audience – usual mix of enthusiastic retirees, local business people enjoying a musical midday break and music students and teachers – was enthralled, as I hope Radio 3 listeners were at home.

Susan Elkin