I have 38 recordings of Shostakovich's first violin concerto, but only 8 of the second, which is some indication of their relative popularity. Listening to the second concerto today, I feel that the low esteem in which it is held is undeserved. Shostakovich's first violin concerto grips you with its raw emotions; the second exudes a kind of numb pessimism (above all in the first two movements) with sparse textures and little drama. It's an old person's music, and not the kind of thing with which you would inaugurate a new concert hall. But I enjoyed it today, on a very good Supraphon recording from a public concert in Prague on 15 and 16 February 1996. Excellent soloist is Bohumil Kotmel (who?) which just goes to show that because a soloist is unknown does not necessarily mean he or she is not top rank. Mr Kotmel empathises with Shostakovich's bleak music, and can also play the violin very well, which is all one should ask for. The Czech Philharmonic gives excellent backing (though the full orchestra plays little part in this music). I especially liked the ripe sound of the Czech horn section.

French evening. The French market is in town, with superb cheeses, the world-winning baguette and the miserable old sod with his charcuterie stall with whom I spend £58 without him even offering me a free saucisson.

But the cheeses this evening were really three star Michelin: Pont L'Evêque, Camembert, and Livarot. All non-pasteurised and in perfect condition. No one this evening eat better cheeses than I. Nowhere.

On to a new CD of Ravel played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, with Pierre Boulez conducting the orchestra in the two piano concertos. I have long had a soft spot for the music of Maurice Ravel. Aimard and Boulez do the two concertos magnificently (with Aimard all alone in the Miroirs). Deutche Grammophon recording; that company is still streets ahead of anyone else when it comes to recording quality. Aimard is an exemplary pianist in Ravel. Boulez is a much better conductor than he ever was composer; let us hope he turns next to accompanying violinists in Vieuxtemps, Ysaye, Rhode, Joachim, Hubay, et alii.

Shows how old I am: yesterday I bought my very first music download (flac files, from Andrew Rose's Pristine Audio). After a bit of faffing around, I managed to find a program that would convert the flac files to wav files that I could write to a music CD. Et voilà! The works I wanted to investigate for their boasted transfer sound qualities were two old Casals recordings: the Brahms double concerto (1929) and the Dvorak cello concerto (1935).

The sound quality was quite astonishingly good (for the vintage of the originals). Three stars for Mr Rose. I have both recordings in other guises, but the Pristine Audio beats them all hands down. As for the works: I have never really taken to the Brahms double concerto, where Brahms' usual muddy, bass-heavy orchestration suits the cello but not really the violin which stands out like a girl in a men's rugby team. Violin and cello make unsatisfactory concerto partners (which is probably why there are not many concertos for violin and cello). Here, Casals sounds magnificent (with a full tone for his cello). Jacques Thibaud hovers in the background, and Alfred Cortot conducts the Catalan orchestra. A classic performance of a less-than satisfactory work.

In the Dvorak concerto, Pau Casals is again magnificent and George Szell and the Czech orchestra now come over in pretty good sound quality. But it's not a concerto I particularly warm to, and I do not think the cello is really cut out to be a bravura solo instrument. Such things are best left to violins or pianos.

Sarasate was a product of the Paris Conservatoire in the mid-19th century and his playing, from many descriptions and from the few recordings he made at the end of his life, is stamped with the Conservatoire's aims of brilliance, delicacy and good taste. Full-blooded bravura playing was not considered appropriate. Tianwa Yang, in her fourth Sarasate CD for Naxos, exemplifies what might be termed "the Sarasate sound" -- at least when she plays Sarasate's attractive and tuneful music. Hopefully these four CDs (of a projected seven) will popularise Sarasate and not just the few bits everyone plays. Three stars, again, for Ms Yang; listening to her rendition of the ever-popular Carmen Fantasy, you realise just how many virtuoso passages many other players smudge over. No smudging for Tianwa; she plays every note perfectly in tune -- and with the utmost delicacy. A real pleasure to listen to.

I've been having second thoughts about Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien in Brahms' G major sonata for violin and piano. Maybe it's not a little slow and sentimental; maybe that is just the way the two musicians think it should be played. On a second hearing, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it reminded me of something Julia Fischer said in a recent BBC radio interview, talking about playing pieces everyone knows all too well [in the case in point, the Franck sonata]. Julia Fischer said you need to forget about "making your own mark" and concentrate on playing the music as you think it is meant to be played. Sounds as if Alina and Cédric are following her advice, and I like the result.

The duo partnership of Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien is a very fine one and I greatly enjoyed a new off-air recording of them playing the first Brahms sonata, plus the Strauss sonata. It's also good to hear Ibragimova in full-blooded Romantic music, since she often seems to stick to the 18th and 20th centuries. The Brahms was a bit sentimental and slow for my taste, and there really should be a twenty year moratorium on anyone playing the Brahms sonatas, fine as they are. There are so many excellent violin and piano sonatas that rarely get an airing -- Saint-Saëns, Alkan, Shostakovich, et al -- that it's a great pity violinists are always forced to play Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel and Prokofiev. At least Ibragimova and Tiberghien ventured into Strauss's fine sonata; a pity he did not write more of them.

I have (almost) four recordings of the third concerto (G Minor) by Jenö Hubay. I have not been an avid Hubay fan in the past, but I have quite taken to this third concerto. Earliest recording is from Efrem Zimbalist in 1930 who, for some strange reason, only seems to have recorded the second and third movements (and I find the first two movements easily the best). Next in 1975 comes Aaron Rosand, followed by Vilmos Szabadi in 2000 and Ragin Wenk-Wolff in 2005. All suffer the usual fate of being accompanied by small-town orchestras and unknown conductors so that it's a miracle the music still makes a good impression.
Ragin Wenk-Wolff, the latest acquisition, annoys by always playing fortissimo in her violin's lower registers (and making a rich, warm sound) while the upper registers of her violin sound a bit weedy (she would have been better making use of higher positions on the "A" string, as Heifetz would have done with such a fiddle). The final result, however, is not very satisfactory as an example of violin sound, which should favour a smooth transition over different strings and registers. The recording may also be against her; it's a bit bass-heavy and the orchestral violin strings lack bite and sheen.
Well, if we ever get Vadim Repin, Janine Jansen, Alina Ibragimova or Leila Josefowicz in Hubay's third concerto, I'll be first in line -- especially if the partners are the LSO under Claudio Abbado. Some hopes.

Every generation has its over-venerated composers. To my mind, the current generation has an entirely unrealistic view of Gustav Mahler, but no doubt time will correct all. Similarly, many composers are under-venerated (one thinks of Franz Schubert who, until half a century or so ago, was usually dismissed as just a very talented song writer).

To my mind, Henry Purcell has usually been under-rated. Not by Handel, at least, who, by all accounts (and to paraphrase his reported comment) said around 30 years after Purcell's untimely death that "if Purcell had lived, we'd all be out of a job". Thoughts on listening to yet another fine Purcell anthology entitled "Love Songs" (Dorothee Mields). Purcell was a genius at setting the English language, at modulating, at harmonising. His music is always clever, lovely and intriguing. Critics have riled at the backing by the Lautten Compangney Berlin. I am not worried; creative and unorthodox the group may be, but I am sure Purcell would have approved, just as I am sure that after listening to his violin music played by Jascha Heifetz and Rachel Podger, Johann Sebastian Bach would have been enchanted by Heifetz.

Long, long ago in central Italy (in the 1960s) I came across spaghetti alle vongole. I loved it. It re-appeared in my life (rarely so good) with Fishworks in Bath (a few years ago) and the Carluccio chain restaurants; This evening, armed with Mitchell Tonk's cook-book, and 300 grammes of clams from New Wave in Cirencester, I cooked my first, very own, spaghetti alle vongole.

In one word: superb. What a dish. A source of really fresh clams is a problem, But I will succeed. Thank you Cirencester fish shop. Thank you Mitchell Tonks. And thank you the many Italian simple restaurants that, back in the 1960s, introduced me to spaghetti alle vongole.Sea salt, Garlic. Parsley. Olive oil, chilli. Fresh, fresh, fresh clams, white wine. And that it it.

A very fine new CD from Tedi Papavrami on which he plays familiar French pieces, with orchestra (Liège Philharmonic). I first came across Papavrami in 1993 when I bought his excellent recording of Alkan's quite unjustly neglected sonata for violin and piano. Papavrami excels in the music on this new CD: Saint-Saëns' Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso and third violin concerto, Chausson's evergreen Poème, and Ysaÿe's Poème élégiaque (the piece that inspired Chausson to write his Poème). Papavrami plays very much like someone from the French school of violin playing, which suits this music. His sound is refined, delicate and far from the "power playing" favoured particularly on the other side of the Atlantic. And his violin (Christian Bayon, 2005) sounds just right for the part. I love this music, and the playing. I'll keep the CD close to hand.

'Tis apparently the season of obscure violin concertos. Following on from Rodolphe Kreutzer, yesterday evening saw me listening with pleasure to the A minor concerto of Julius Röntgen. This is a work that deserves a regular hearing. Röntgen was born in Germany in 1855 -- he later became Dutch -- so this work has echoes of Brahms, Joachim, Bruch and Goldmark. Competent violinist is Ragin Wenk-Wolff who is stronger on beef than on subtlety or nuance, but she is enjoyable to listen to and appears to like what she is playing. I listened to the concerto twice over, and have it out for a third hearing. Not too usual for me with a new "minor" work.

Back to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations Op 120. A couple of years ago I really admired a 1988 performance from Richter. Now I am really admiring a 1985 live recording by Grigory Sokolov from St Petersburg. Beautiful pianism in a performance that emphasises much of the mystic nature of many of these variations. I am not an uncritical Beethoven fan, finding some of his music a little bombastic and sometimes trivial. But the Diabelli Variations are a high point and I shall keep Sokolov alongside the 1988 Richter.

Back safe and sound. Triumphantly put on my newly-arrived CD of Philippe Graffin playing Ysaÿe and Saint-Saëns ... only to realise I already had the admirable CD on my shelves. Money down the drain. I turned instead to three violin concertos of Rodolphe Kreutzer (numbers 15, 18 and 19) kindly supplied by Ronald. Pleasant, easy-listening music, well played as usual by Laurent Albrecht Breuninger whom no one can accuse of always playing the same old hackneyed pieces. Good times; can one imagine a recording of three Kreutzer violin concertos appearing in the 1950s-90s from the likes of RCA, Decca, EMI, Philips, Columbia, etc?

I hesitated before recording the 15th August 2010 performance of the first Shostakovich violin concerto that Julia Fischer gave at the Proms with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski. First of all, I already have 38 recordings of this concerto with artists such as Oistrakh, Kogan, Repin and -- my favourite -- Leila Josefowicz. So why record another, especially since Ms Fischer had been a bit prim and prissy in Bach, Mozart and Schubert (although I admired her Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and Khatchaturian)?

Well, I am glad I did. Julia Fischer gave a magnificent performance of what, to me, is the No.1 of all violin concertos. Her starting point is complete and utter technical mastery of what she is playing. A good starting point: but then? In this performance, she used her technical mastery as a vehicle to launch into Shostakovich's complex, neurotic, fantastic world. And she took us with her, bar by bar. Magnificent. Josefowicz may have been even more involved? Fischer is even more technically assured? You need both girls.

The first Shostakovich violin concerto is one that needs a true partnership between soloist and orchestra (in the same way as the Beethoven and Elgar concertos). Equal honours here to Jurowski and the London Philharmonic. A performance to remember, and a very welcome No.39 to my collection.

I am currently working my way through the three hours of Handel's Berenice, so a slight digression from music to praise the film "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" which I watched yesterday on DVD and enjoyed thoroughly. Not often a film of a good book is also enjoyable, but this Swedish film continues Sweden's excellent cinema heritage. Sweden may not be a great place for gastronomy (from my recollections). But it does produce excellent novels, films and furniture.

I didn't think I'd be writing enthusiastically about Rachel Barton. In the past, my acquaintance with her playing hasn't caused me much interest, and I had put her down as a kind of modern Bronislaw Gimpel or Alfredo Campoli -- worthy, but somewhat dull. But I find myself liking her "Instrument of the Devil" CD. Technically, she is highly impressive, even making Ernst's Erlkönig caprice quite listenable-to. And I also admire the sheer gusto with which she approaches her "devilish" music -- Danse Macabre, Mephisto Waltz, Ronde des Lutins, Le Streghe, et al. Attractive programme compilation, attractive playing; Ms Barton is never afraid to slash at her violin when the occasion warrants it. A CD for the "play again" pile. As I say: unexpected. But highly welcome and a disc that stands out from most of the routine compilations that spring up almost monthly. I am less sure about Tartini's Devil's Trill played here with a harpsichord and cello that add nothing to the music, and shorn of the cadenza in the Kreisler version to which I always look forward. But the Tartini is only around 16 minutes of a generous CD that lasts 79 plus minutes.

Back to Monsieur de Bériot and his highly attractive and tuneful second violin concerto (in B minor, Op 32). Having enjoyed the work played by Philippe Quint, I put on the same work played by Albrecht Breuninger. I must confess, I prefer the German. Quint is a superb violinist, but he doesn't show as much affection for de Bériot's work as does Breuninger. And the German seems more relaxed and at home in the idiom, whereas Quint is more the international power-violinist.

However, it's a good new world where we can find at least two good modern recordings of this likable violin concerto; things would have been difficult back before the CD era.

Saturday evening had three heroes: Charles-Auguste de Bériot, Leonard Walker, and Edouard Leclerc.

Monsieur de Bériot provided the music (played by Philippe Quint). Mr Walker provided (once again) the truly excellent rib-eye steak. And Monsieur Leclerc provided the acceptable red wine (Côtes de Bourg) at only €2.79 per bottle. Cheeses and salad from various contributors.