Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis are distinct musical personalities yet they work together extremely well in Brahms’s interpretatively perilous Double Concerto – Bell’s sweet-toned ardour is at once anchored and buoyed by Isserlis’s gruffer, more ruminative style. They shape their interwoven lines with care, so that even extensive, ornately configured sequences sound cogently long-breathed, as at 5'09" in the opening Allegro. Both highlight expressive details while maintaining a feeling of flowing inevitability – note, for instance, the elegant use of portamento at 12'35" in the slow movement. And, crucially, they know when to tighten the screws to build emotional pressure. If only the orchestra played with a comparable level of intensity.

Everything is in its place, mind you. The Academy of St Martin in the Fields’ ensemble is tight and the score’s thick textures are clarified by the smaller string section, although at times I’ll admit I wanted more heft. But listen at 7'36" in the first movement: Bell and Isserlis pull their syncopations thrillingly taut, then the orchestra enters and the music suddenly goes limp. This happens again and again, which leads me to believe that unlike, say, Bach’s Double Concerto, Brahms’s requires a conductor’s full attention.

Happily, the B major Trio is wholly satisfying – and it’s played here in the 1854 edition, which is considerably more diffuse than the more familiar 1889 revision. I’m not going to argue that the original version is superior. It’s not. But it is fascinatingly flawed, with Hoffmannesque flights of fancy. Bell, Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk relish all the oddities and are generally more forgiving of its weaknesses than Trio Wanderer on a recent Harmonia Mundi release.

As a kind of intermezzo between the concerto and the trio, we are given a full-throated account of the slow movement of Schumann’s late Violin Concerto, here with a prominent cello solo. I prefer the confidential tone of Bell’s earlier Decca recording (5/96) but this performance is valuable as it includes a brief codetta by Britten, written to make it a standalone piece – Schumann’s original segues directly to the finale – for Dennis Brain’s 1958 memorial concert.