The international violin competition in Brussels, founded as a result of the friendship between Ysaÿe and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, was first held in 1937, when David Oistrakh won first prize. To commemorate its 75th anniversary, Muso has issued this collection of concerto performances recorded at the competition. The listener is immediately aware that each performance is a special occasion for the soloist, leading to some compelling music-making.

The earliest recordings date from 1967. Gidon Kremer’s Elgar is high-powered and assured, not always catching its more graceful moods but wonderfully imaginative in the finale’s accompanied cadenza. From the same year, Philippe Hirshhorn’s Paganini is revelatory. Most violinists would struggle, even in studio conditions, to achieve his level of accuracy and purity, let alone his carefree spirit and thoughtful expressive nuances. The one blemish here is the senseless, damaging cuts to the orchestral sections. Four years later, Miriam Fried’s Mendelssohn is just as outstanding. She clearly inspires the orchestra with her passionate commitment and, in the first movement, maintains an exemplary distinction between the passages marked agitato and tranquillo.

Vadim Repin (1989) is especially thrilling in the finale of the Tchaikovsky and is successful, too, in demonstrating the lyrical inspiration of the first movement. Eight years later, we find Nicolaj Znaider intensely involved with the Sibelius; in meeting its complex technical challenges, there’s no sense of him holding back, or playing for safety. At the same competition, Kristóf Baráti’s Beethoven gives us immaculate playing with lovely, clear tone, though in the outer movements seeming a little lacking in force and vigour.

In the 21st century, Yossif Ivanov (2005) encompasses the extreme contrasts of Shostakovich’s First Concerto, as convincing in the meditative music as in the harsh, grotesque episodes. And Barnabás Kelemen (2001) is clearly at home in Bartók; this is a splendidly idiomatic, natural performance, especially touching in the central Andante.

Recorded in the dry acoustic of the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts, Sibelius and Elgar perhaps lose in atmospheric quality but Bartók and Shostakovich sound admirably clean and pungent. Taken together, these live performances constitute a remarkable display of musical talent.