I was wowed by Augustin Hadelich’s richly characterised and subtly coloured account of the Brahms Concerto (Warner, 6/19), and his new recording of the Dvořák is equally impressive. How warmly his dolce playing seems to smile (listen at 6'05" in the opening Allegro ma non troppo, for example), and how his tone gleams with steely strength when called for (as at 9'35" in the same movement). He uses portamento with expressive elegance (the opening of the slow movement is a sublime example), and can whittle his tone down to the finest strand without losing tonal focus (try the Adagio’s coda at 9'41"). Note, too, the way Hadelich suggests a wiry-sounding folk fiddle in the finale’s D minor interlude (starting at 3'53").

Jakub Hrůša has the Bavarian RSO playing with vigour and a comparable sense of care. I find his and Hadelich’s tempo for the finale a hair fast – Josef Suk, first with Ančerl (Supraphon, 4/96) and later with Neumann (also Supraphon), somehow conveys both the giocoso and ma non troppo modifiers of the Allegro tempo marking – although, thankfully, they do relax in the lyrical sections.

Czech works for violin and piano fill out the exceptionally generous programme. Hadelich and his longtime recital partner Charles Owen transform the last of Dvořák’s Four Romantic Pieces, Op 75, into an aching, darkly passionate miniature tone-painting. Their reading of the Janáček Sonata is similarly gripping and overflowing with imaginative detail – listen, say, to Hadelich’s urgent, guttural tone at the start, the profound tenderness of Owen’s quiet playing in the Ballada and the disorientating fury with which they tear into the Allegretto. The four Suk pieces may lack the emotional force of Janáček’s work but here, too, the performance teems with incident.

A pair of ‘encores’ ends the recital with a nostalgic whiff of old-school charm. Indeed, Hadelich’s phrasing and wistful portamento in Kreisler’s arrangement of Dvořák’s Humoresque would surely have made Kreisler himself proud. A superb disc on all counts.