Benchmark Selection

A fine recording of standard concerto repertoire with Gil Shaham playing Brahms's Violin Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Claudio Abbado and then being joined by Jian Wang on cello for the Double Concerto with the same forces. Shaham's version of the violin concerto here is the current selection for the BBC Building a Library segment of the CD review programme. The concerto was written by Brahms for his virtuoso friend Joseph Joachim ( who wrote the cadenza to the first movement ) and it is typical of the symphonic style of concerto and as such is ideally suited to the sound of the Berlin Phil. As a contrast, Abbado, the band and the solists succeed in bringing out the essentially chamber music characteristics of the double concerto. This is an engaging work that would I'm sure be programmed much more frequently if it wasn't for the economic fact that it would need the participation of two "name" soloists. The coupling of the two concertos here make a very attractive disk.