Cattaneo Violin Concertos Anton Steck, L'arpa Festante.

The content of “Schranck No: II” represents the rich Dresden instrumental repertoire from the first two thirds of the 18th century with a volume of about 1,750 pieces of music. After the end of the Seven Years’ War, these musical pieces were sorted, inserted into envelopes with their characteristic detailed title labels and deposited in an archive cabinet, the aforementioned “Schranck No: II”, in the court church. Like a time capsule, this treasure was rediscovered only after the middle of the 19th century by the court kapellmeister Julius Rietz. Today, this unique collection belongs to the collection of the Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library.

It is unbelievable that such a popular work in the current repertoire as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto Op. 61 only conquered the concert hall around three to four decades after its composition. The work ultimately gained its popularity through two revised printed versions published in Vienna and in London, which both reveal substantial revisions in the solo parts. The quest for Beethoven’s “original version” proves to be extremely complicated, as Beethoven himself offered up to four alternatives to the soloists in some spots of the manuscript. A study of the different inks and quills used in that autograph has allowed the violinist Anton Steck to propose the new und unusual version recorded here, which thanks also to the use of historical instruments results in a tangible and transparent rendering of a very well-known piece.

Nicola Porpora, a contemporary of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Haydn (and a very young Mozart) is best remembered today as a famous singing teacher and opera composer. During his long career (he lived to age 81) he suffered many employment-related difficulties and disappointments that caused him to move frequently. Naples (where he was born), Venice, Dresden, and Vienna (where he taught Haydn) all enjoyed Porpora's reputable presence, and he even spent a period in London at the behest of a group seeking to unseat Handel and his opera company from its preeminent position. In addition to his operas and vocal music, Porpora wrote instrumental works such as the six violin sonatas featured here, which are drawn from a set of 12. Although anyone familiar with Italian Baroque and early Classical-style solo violin music will discover nothing particularly original on this generally fine recording, if you enjoy that genre and period you'll find much here to indulge and satisfy your taste.

This plunge into the steady stream of Biber releases comes from violinist Anton Steck, an alumnus of the Musica Antiqua Köln period-instrument group. Austria's Heinrich Ignaz von Biber was a brilliant, iconoclastic violinist and composer of the late seventeenth century, hardly known 25 years ago but now the recipient of attention from violinists and casual listeners alike. His Mystery Sonatas collectively depict the Passion story through the unique device of scordatura, or retuning of the violin, which forces the instrument into strange, unearthly textures and moods.

This disc juxtaposes two significant Russian works for violin and orchestra, each written by a composer with a close relationship to Tchaikovsky, and each dedicated to the great violinist and pedagogue Leopold Auer. These two concertos are both formidable display pieces, designed to show off Auer’s transcendental technique. Ilya Gringolts, acclaimed as one of the great young violin virtuosos of today and lauded for his debut recording on Hyperion, dazzles in this repertoire, ably supported by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov.

When Vilde Frang programs violin concertos in unexpected pairs, such as her 2010 coupling of Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor with Sergey Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, or her 2012 disc of Carl Nielsen's Violin Concerto matched against Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, the results are quite fascinating. For this 2016 release on Warner Classics, Frang plays the Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and the Violin Concerto, Op. 15 of Benjamin Britten, and the works invite comparisons because they are so dramatically different.

The Gemini Series features an impressive roster of singers, conductors, soloists, and ensembles of international renown, all from the incomparable EMI Classics stable. EMI's rich legacy of recording expertise comes to the fore in performances from the 1960s to the 1990s. Gemini titles are predominantly collections of single composers and fantastic value with well over an hour of music on each CD, making them the ideal place to start or develop a collection of classical music. Each 2-CD set contains over two hours of music for a fantastically low price. Attractively designed and packaged in space-saving brilliant boxes, each set includes three-language booklets with detailed notes on the music.

Lolli has received relatively little attention in modern times. I haven’t, for example, been able to trace a single reference to him in the pages of MusicWeb International. Despite this he holds a rather prominent place in that line of Italian violin virtuosi which runs from a figure such as Biagio Marini through Corelli and Tartini to Paganini and Viotti. The musicologist Albert Mell has, not unreasonably, written of him that he “was from many points of view the most important violin virtuoso before Paganini” (Musical Quarterly, Vol. 44, 1958) and Simon McVeigh (in The Cambridge Companion to the Violin) has described him as “the archetypal travelling virtuoso”.

A very light but very lovely disc of mid-twentieth century violin concertos, this 1996 recording by Joshua Bell with David Zinman directing the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra coupling the concertos of Samuel Barber and William Walton along with Baal Shem, the concerto-in-all-but-in-name by Ernest Bloch, may be for younger listeners a first choice among digital recordings.

Hungarian Kristóf Baráti is recognised as one of the most outstanding violinists of his generation. His dazzling technique (often compared with the young Heifetz), his sincere, intensely musical interpretations and strong personality have brought him to today's top. This release presents two virtuoso showcases, the violin concertos nos. 1 & 2 by Paganini, the wizard of the violin, suspected of having sold his soul to the devil in order to receive a transcendent technique.