Both of these performances were recorded live during Pinchas Zukerman’s final season as music director of the Orchestra du Centre National des Arts du Canada, of which his partner Amanda Forsyth, soloist in the Brahms Double Concerto, is the principal cellist. The 47-year-old orchestra, successor to the long-defunct Ottawa Philharmonic, may not be in the same league as, say, the Toronto Symphony but to judge by these recordings it is a decent outfit, as honest as the day is long.

Of the two performances, it is that of the symphony which is the greater surprise. To what extent Zukerman’s reading is modelled on Carlos Kleiber’s famous Vienna Philharmonic recording (DG, 4/81^R) – the timings are pretty well identical – is neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that it is a reading of trenchancy and power, more so, I would hazard, than some of the recorded performances of the Fourth by Zukerman’s old comrades-in-arms Zubin Mehta and Daniel Barenboim.

The Andante and finale of the Double Concerto are pleasingly done. The soloists are in close accord, and Zukerman, now in his late sixties, still draws a sweet, silvery sound from the violin. The first movement is given a rather more robust treatment, with less of a sense of this as symphonic chamber music, though it’s here that Zukerman’s decision to dispense with a conductor can sometimes be an inhibiting factor. Compare the new performance with, say, the exceptional 2003 LSO recording, where Bernard Haitink’s conducting provides line and continuity while at the same time giving soloists Gordan Nikolitch and Tim Hugh all the security and freedom they need with which to work.