Late-night Bach is a feature of this year’s Proms, with the focus falling predominantly, though not exclusively, on the solo instrumental works. András Schiff’s Goldberg Variations and Yo-Yo Ma’s performance of the Cello Suites in a single unbroken sitting come later in the season. The series opened, however, with the first of two concerts by Alina Ibragimova surveying the violin sonatas and partitas, the first time the cycle has been performed complete at the Proms.

The first partita, flanked by the first two sonatas, formed her programme, minor-key works of severe beauty that traverse vast emotional and intellectual narratives by the sparsest, if most technically demanding of means. Inevitably, one wondered how music more usually heard in venues no larger than the Wigmore might work in the vast spaces of the Albert Hall. But the immediacy and honesty of Ibragimova’s playing has the curious ability to collapse any sense of distance between performer and listener. A lone figure in a simple black dress, playing everything from memory, she held her audience completely captive.

She’s unshowy, which helps, making no attempts at self-conscious display, though the technical challenge of each piece was securely faced and surmounted. Sound and meaning merged. The First Sonata’s fugue was delivered with intense exactitude. The B Minor Partita, with its haunting – even haunted – double sarabande may be sombre, but its dances had an energy that proved infectious. The high point was the A Minor Sonata, its opening Grave teetering on tragedy, the Andante, with its double-stopped throbs, all the more poignant for its restraint; the echo effects of its final Allegro at once dazzling and emotionally contained. An outstanding achievement, spellbinding from start to finish.

• The Proms continue until 12 September. Box office: 0845 401 5040.