Published in 1733, Pietro Locatelli’s L’Arte del violino took both violin technique and the solo concerto as a genre into a whole new realm. The twelve concertos included in the collection also played a part in forming the image of the violin virtuoso, reaching its full bloom with Paganini towards the end of the century. Locatelli probably composed the set between 1723 and 1729, years that he spent mainly on the road performing at princely courts across Italy and Germany. Ilya Gringolts has accepted Locatelli’s challenge and here performs three of the L’Arte concertos. He does so with the support of the Finnish Baroque Orchestra, which he conducts from his gut-stringed violin by Ferdinando Gagliano, ca. 1770.