After enjoying my recent Naxos CD of three Russian violin concertos, I turned to Julia Fischer on a PentaTone CD where she plays three more Russian concertos (Khatchaturian, Prokofiev 1, and Glazunov) accompanied by Yakov Kreizberg and the Russian National Orchestra. A pity Ms Fischer has left PentaTone; it's a company that currently produces some of the best quality recordings.

I greatly admired these performances of both the Glazunov and the Khatchaturian concertos (I haven't yet re-listened to the Prokofiev). The Glazunov “belongs” to Heifetz, Rabin and Milstein, of course, but Fischer is competitive. I have always enjoyed Khatchaturian's melodic and attractive violin concerto (although some miserable critics tend to sniff at it since it is not “progressive”). The great recorded performance of this concerto is that of Julian Sitkovetsky with the Romanian Radio Orchestra conducted by Niyazi (1954) a searing and scintillating performance that will probably never be equalled on record. Julia Fischer, however, does well and is, of course, better recorded than poor old Sitkovetsky back in 1954. The twentieth century Russians certainly produced many highly attactive violin concertos.