C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)

Thanks to preparation and de Waart’s keen ear for balance, every detail of Elgar’s orchestration of the A-flat Symphony is heard – possibly with greater definition than you’ll find elsewhere. But it’s all rather literal and comes at the cost of passion, heartache and a sense of momentum. Gerontius has been the almost exclusive recording preserve of English knights – Ashkenazy the exception. The attractions here are fine orchestral playing and choral sound (set back in a spacious Antwerp hall).

96kHz/24-bit FLAC, BIS BIS-1978 (supplied by www. eclassical. com) I don’t think these two C-minor concertos have been coupled on records before, in spite of obvious connections. As if to stress these, the Mozart is given a Beethovenian vigour and scale – not inappropriately.

In this mid-2012 Brahms recording from the reverberant Lukaskirche, Dresden, Batiashvili is playing the Stradivarius owned by Joachim. She doesn’t play his familiar first-movt cadenza, however, but – like Isabelle Faust on Harmonia Mundi last year – the one by Busoni which has timpanist and orchestral strings joining in. The three Romances Op. 22 are by Schumann’s sister Clara (Joachim was again the dedicatee); these are airy and gracious pieces, and the violinist is nicely partnered by Ott.

Stephanie Proot is a young Belgian pianist who trained in Antwerp, Paris and Brussels and attended various masterclasses – Bashkirov, Fleischer, Goode, et al – and has won several competition awards. She makes her debut plunging in at the deep end with Beethoven’s early F major, the two ‘quasi fantasia’ sonatas (the second the ‘Moonlight’) and – a brave try – the late A-flat. Recording in a dry Ghent studio, she plays a Yamaha Grand: it has decent presence but the album is sonically unremarkable. Proot has the necessary technical competence but not as yet the musical phrasing insights shown in the first recordings of Grimaud, Pires or Uchida, and her playing is somewhat mechanical.