Elgar: Tempi throughout are uniformly well judged. The first movement ideally combines suppleness and purpose, leading into a quicksilver scherzo that eschews any suggestion of hectic flashiness. To the glorious slow movement Isserlis and Järvi bring an unexaggerated depth of feeling, tenderness of expression and simple flow [...]

The Walton concerto likewise finds these sympathetic artists at the top of their game. [...] After a sultry and intoxicatingly poised opening movement, the central scherzo fairly crackles with wit and ear-pricking detail (how good it is, for instance, to have those harmonic overtones register so subtly in the soloist’s brief col legno passage just before the end). [...] As for the ambitious finale, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it essayed with a greater combination of stylish teamwork, sinewy thrust and inevitability (both cadenzas, by the way, are riveting).

It's no surprise, perhaps, that Steven isserlis's latest recording of the Elgar concerto should be special: this is a long-loved, lived-in interpretation in which every superfluity has been scoured away leaving only an extraordinarily pure line of expression. Helen Wallace