Vadim Repin's performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto have met with much press acclaim, and one sees why. His dazzling technique aside, the firm, warm tone, magnificent control of phrasing and rhythmic incisiveness are all tailor-made for the piece. ...Riccardo Chailly's direction of the Gewandhausorchester is with him all the way. Repin is joined by Truls Mørk for an equally memorable account of the Double Concerto. ...the warmth and skill they bring the Andante, characterising their instruments as the two protagonists of an intimate dialogue, makes this the high-point of the disc.

…Chailly… conveys wonderfully well the epic quality of the huge opening tutti. Repin relishes the work's moments of delicacy as much as the declamatory ones. Nothing is ever effortful: even the tortuous double-stopping seems to leave him entirely unfazed.

Despite Vadim Repin's formidable reputation as a Brahms interpreter, his recording of the Violin Concerto will doubtless prove controversial in some quarters. The glamour and majesty of his playing leap out at you from every phrase; this is a performance on the grandest of scales, full of high drama and extravagant rhetorical gestures. Conducted by Riccardo Chailly, it's also notably slow. The dividends are enormous in the second half: the adagio has great nobility, while the finale is weighty and detailed as well as virtuosic. The first movement, however, has a ponderous quality that reinforces old-fashioned views of Brahms's music as being stately. Its companion piece is the Double Concerto, in which Repin and Chailly are joined by Norwegian cellist Truls Mork. This is a wonderful performance, and certainly the more consistent of the two. Chailly's conducting has cragginess as well as grandeur, while Repin and Mork are thrilling and tender. Recommended - though if you prefer the Violin Concerto done with more intimacy, you need to look elsewhere.