Anne-Sophie Mutter obviously had fun making this disc. In the quiet pieces (Massenet, Ysaÿe, Fauré) which serve as interludes, she plays with her usual exquisite taste. In the showpieces, though, she goes to town, sliding, scooping, exaggerating, & letting all the stops out. The gypsy inflection she uses in Ravel’s Tzigane & Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen is delicious. Even a ridiculous orchestral arrangement of Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata is more amusing than offensive. With James Levine & the Berlin Philharmonic providing uncommonly alert & powerful support, & Deutsche Grammophon’s realistic sound, this disc is a real treat for violin lovers.

For his first LSO Live recording, Gianandrea Noseda is joined by three of today s most widely acclaimed singers for a magnificent performance of Benjamin Britten s choral masterpiece. Premiered 50 years ago on 30 May 1962, the 'War Requiem' was commissioned for the re-dedication of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by bombing raids during the Second World War. Using the Latin mass of the dead, interspersed with texts by war poet Wilfred Owen, Britten, a pacifist and conscientious objector, created a work that both mourned the dead and pleaded the futility of war.

One hundred and eleven musicians celebrating a large-scale symphony that sounds like Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, or Arnold Schoenberg. In fact, the composer of this symphony, Alfred Schnittke, had precisely these composers (and many others) in mind back in 1981. Whereas he initially mirrored certain styles from figures as Mahler, Mozart, Bach, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, he was soon also borrowing concepts from trivial music, folklore, jazz, tango, as well as many other styles. He himself described his compositional technique, but an aesthetic programme: a serious effort to break through the vicious circle of the self-satisfied and self-sufficient avant-garde music.

J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin are considered by many as the pinnacle of musical achievement, arguably the composer’s most demanding and emotionally penetrating works. After living with, reading about, listening to and playing these seminal works for over 30 years Gil Shaham offers a fresh and vital new perspective on these works, undertaken in 2014 as part of his Artist-in-Residence with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischer Rundfunk.

This SACD transfer of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s Beethoven violin sonatas, taken from a series of live recordings from 1998, does not transcend the questionable interpretations. In each of these famous sonatas, Mutter takes excessive liberties with respect to dynamics and phrasing, and while some listeners may appreciate the thought and care she puts into these readings, it sounds as if she is trying a bit too hard to be “musical”. For example, just before the exposition repeat of the “Spring” sonata, several instances of disproportionate agogic pauses, inconsistent use of vibrato, random adherences to sforzando markings, and a sporadic disregard for (or recasting of) dynamics combine to produce an overly fussy performance that lacks momentum and a sense of direction.

Siblings Gil and Orli Shaham's new release is an offering of Hebrew melodies. Jewish folk music has always played an integral part in the Shahams' lives; as Gil recalls he grew up hearing Achron's Hebrew Melody being sung by his grandparents in Jerusalem. Such music vividly evokes its troubled origins. 'When I think about the time, people lived such hard lives in such poverty in the shtetl, and I think literature and music was an incredible escape for them,' the violinist reflects, yet the Hebrew melodies' potency is such that they transcend the world from which they sprang. 'One very powerful aspect of this music is its soulfulness,' Orli Shaham says; 'I don't care what background you come from, I don't think you can listen to it without feeling that connection.'