Concertos

Mixing technical bravura and poetic lyricism, Kavakos and the leading Sibelius conductor Osmo Vanska [BOTHS As ACUTE] play this concerto twice, as this fascinating disc also features the work's even more demanding original version.

Sviatoslav Richter's almost mythical reputation in the West was made before he could travel beyond the Iron Curtain by this powerful 1959 recording with the Warsaw Philharmonic.

Recorded in the mid-1950s, Solomon's Mozart remains unsurpassed, and his playing shines through in this prodigiously melodic work.

One of Mozart's most sublime and searching works, this double concerto for violin and viola inspires a lively musical conversation between two great string players and the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta.

Elgar's valedictory masterpiece is also a monument to the passionate playing of Jacquline du Pre, [E ACUTE] whose recording under John Barbirolli is one of the most celebrated in English music.

The greatest of all violin concertos, Beethoven's long work needs the breadth of vision that the rapt-sounding Perlman is able to supply under Daniel Barenboim's baton.

Even in a crowded and distinguished field, Mitsuko Uchida's performances under Kurt Sanderling's baton stand out for their responsiveness and sense of drama.

It was the legendary Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's recording that decisively changed the fortunes of Rachmaninov's Fourth Piano Concerto. Long considered the ugly duckling of Rachmaninov's concerto output--a last and less than convincing gasp of Russian romanticism composed at a time (1926) when the world had moved on--the work won its proper place in the wake of Michelangeli's 1957 landmark recording. Fiery yet patrician in his performances, the Italian pianist coupled this with another unsurpassed interpretation, of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, and the result is one of the greatest concerto discs ever made.