This week Geoff Adams reviews Beethoven, Britten: Violin Concertos and Holst: The Planets. Britten: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.
Estonian-American Paavo Jarvi conducts two orchestras to display these great concertos close to the heart of the exciting Dutch violinist.
Beethoven's masterpiece is a well-known, monumental concert warhorse, but the fiendishly difficult Britten work is too-rarely heard.
Jansen calls them two of the greatest concertos written, and she manages to bring polished silver freshness to each.
Enjoy the ease of superb technique, tone and exquisite timing, giving a new perspective to the Beethoven work, accompanied by the German orchestra.
Britten's concerto is complex but elegantly lyrical. Jarvi draws glorious orchestral colours from the LSO, to partner the soloist's brilliance.
Highlights: Jansen soars majestically through Kreisler's cadenza in Beethoven's concerto, and weaves a wonderful spell in the long cadenza Britten wrote for his.
Jarvi again wields his baton for two of the best-known orchestral works to come out of England in the 20th century: Holst's popular suite and Britten's educational set of variations.
Both have become famous because of vivid, exciting sound-images, and this time Jarvi coaxes tonnes of brilliance from a fine American orchestra in full cry.
Both works get high-voltage performances, Telarc's engineers are famous for reproducing such expansive music so cleanly with amazing fidelity and spatial sound, like a live performance.
From the opening salvoes of Mars one knows this is a thrilling listening experience - and the romping Jupiter and magical Uranus keep the loudest of The Planets merrily shaking the galaxy.
Highlight: closing fugue of Britten's Guide unleashes orchestra in joyful fortissimo.
