Haydn [Concerto] Concertos for violin and orchestra, HobVIIa—No. 1 in C; No. 4 in G. Sinfonia concertante in B flat, HobI/105 ^a. ^a Anthony Robson (ob); ^a Felix Warnock (bn); ^a David Watkin (vc); Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Elizabeth Wallfisch (vn).

Virgin Classics Veritas (Full price) (CD) VC7 91186-2 (59 minutes: DDD).

The violinist, Elizabeth Wallfisch, has appeared on many distinguished period-performance recordings, but here as the director and principal soloist in all three of these concertante works she establishes her musical personality more positively than ever. The result could not be more attractive, conveying the genial sense of enjoyment that made this orchestra's earlier Virgin Classics recordings of the "Paris" Symphonies so compelling. In the two violin concertos—which irritatingly the tracking on the disc puts in the wrong order—the obvious comparison is with the Archiv Produktion recordings by Simon Standage with The English Concert directed by Trevor Pinnock. Consistently, the new issue is the sweeter, employing a lighter, generally gentler style, while never diluting the scholarly demands of period performance. At speeds a degree more relaxed, whether in fast movements or slow, Wallfisch and her partners lift rhythms more persuasively, with dotted rhythms made sharper, a degree more exaggerated. The jaunty rhythms make one welcome the slower speeds, with a pomposo manner hinted at in the first movement of the C major, and a more reflective mood implied in the central Adagio.

Where Standage and Pinnock have another violin concerto, the A major, for a coupling as well as a concertante romance movement by Salomon, the Sinfonia concertante on the new disc makes an even more colourful and distinctive third item, particularly when the performance is so winning. From the opening of the tutti the playing is exhilarating, and the interplay of the solo instruments similarly conveys the feeling of colleagues having fun challenging each other in their individual phrasing and rubato—not least in the first movement cadenza (Haydn's own). The leading of the violin then firmly co-ordinates the whole team. I have rarely enjoyed this fine work so much, a product of Haydn's London visit in 1792. The recording presents the players well forward in an aptly intimate acoustic, with a spacious enough ambience to give a helpful bloom to each of the solo instruments. The mislabelling of the concertos is an irritating blot, and it might have been helpful to have the Hoboken number of the Sinfonia concertante, instead of the long-superseded opus number.

EG