George Frederick Pinto (1785-1806) was a child prodigy both as performer- on violin and piano- and as composer. Sometimes he was referred to as “the...

George Frederick Pinto (1785-1806) was a child prodigy both as performer- on violin and piano- and as composer. Sometimes he was referred to as “the British Mozart.” He was only twenty when he died, probably from tuberculosis or from what one writer called ‘dissipation.’ He is thus one of the major ‘what-ifs’ of music history: the music he composed in the little time he had reveals a composer as gifted as almost any of his contemporaries. These three quirky and inventive violin sonatas- receiving their first recordings here- sit on the cusp of Romanticism, their Classical elegance warmed by a graceful lyricism that looks forward to Schubert.