Brahms: Violin Concerto; Double Concerto; Repin/ Mork/ Leipzig Gewandhaus/ Chailly

Despite Vadim Repin's formidable reputation as a Brahms interpreter, his recording of the Violin Concerto will doubtless prove controversial in some quarters. The glamour and majesty of his playing leap out at you from every phrase; this is a performance on the grandest of scales, full of high drama and extravagant rhetorical gestures. Conducted by Riccardo Chailly, it's also notably slow. The dividends are enormous in the second half: the adagio has great nobility, while the finale is weighty and detailed as well as virtuosic. The first movement, however, has a ponderous quality that reinforces old-fashioned views of Brahms's music as being stately. Its companion piece is the Double Concerto, in which Repin and Chailly are joined by Norwegian cellist Truls Mork. This is a wonderful performance, and certainly the more consistent of the two. Chailly's conducting has cragginess as well as grandeur, while Repin and Mork are thrilling and tender. Recommended - though if you prefer the Violin Concerto done with more intimacy, you need to look elsewhere.