‘Why compose violin and orchestra rhapsodies after Tchaikovsky’s opera and ballet music?’ asks Guy Braunstein in his booklet note to this disc, entitled ‘Tchaikovsky Treasures’. It’s a good question and one that puzzles me. The former concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic explains that it was while conducting Eugene Onegin that he took out his violin and started playing the vocal line of Tatyana’s Letter Scene, gradually modifying it ‘for virtuoso violin’. He argues that Leopold Auer did just the same with Tchaikovsky’s music.

So Braunstein’s disc, which opens with the Violin Concerto, is bulked out with his own arrangements of the Letter Scene, Lensky’s aria and the opening number from what is usually danced as the ‘Black Swan’ pas de deux from Swan Lake. But when there are plenty of other violin concertante works by Tchaikovsky that fit on to a disc rather neatly – the Sérénade mélancolique (composed for Auer) and Valse scherzo do indeed find their way into the running order here – these three arrangements feel like fillers. The Letter Scene is nicely played but ultimately one misses the vocal line, craving for the likes of Anna Netrebko or Galina Vishnevskaya. Similarly, in Swan Lake there are genuine opportunities for solo violin – the Danse russe. Perhaps Pentatone was trying to avoid duplicating the same programme Julia Fischer set down (splendidly) with Yakov Kreizberg and the Russian National Orchestra, which includes the gorgeous Souvenir d’un lieu cher. Nemanja Radulovic´, my current favourite Concerto recording, is at it too, pairing it with an arrangement for viola of the Rococo Variations.

Programme quibbles aside, Braunstein plays with slim, wiry tone, zipping along in the concerto neatly. The first movement doesn’t burst with the same personality as a player like Nemanja Radulovic´; comparing cadenzas is interesting, Fischer mighty of tone, Radulovic´ balancing drama and poetry, Braunstein clean and lithe but a touch timid. But he observes dynamics scrupulously and really makes his violin sing in a hushed Canzonetta. The finale has a suitably jaunty, dancelike feel.

Braunstein plays with the BBC Symphony under Kirill Karabits – offering safe rather than inspired support when heard alongside the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic (Radulović) or RNO (Fischer). It’s an account that is probably closest to Joshua Bell and the Berlin Phil – I wonder if Braunstein was concertmaster on that 2005 recording? – where the playing is very fine but a little ponderous in terms of character.

The concertante works are all attractively played by Braunstein but if you want the Souvenir d’un lieu cher too, I strongly recommend Julia Fischer.