Tianwa Yang, who has eight impressive discs of Pablo de Sarasate under her belt for Naxos, is the violinist here, joined by the cellist Gabriel Schwabe and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Antoni Wit. Recorded in the fine acoustic of Berlin’s Jesus-Christus-Kirche, these readings have plenty of Teutonic orchestral weight but are not stodgy in the way Karajan ploughs through these scores with the Berlin Philharmonic in Anne Sophie Mutter’s recordings from the 1980s.

Mutter and Yang are chalk and cheese. There’s a dark intensity to the teenage Mutter’s formidable tone in the solo Concerto, an imperious approach with a rather stately, earthbound finale, whereas Yang’s sound is lithe and warm, abetted by mellow dolce sweetness in the instrument’s upper register, where she can refine it down to a whisper. Yang’s Brahms is rhapsodic, although I miss the bravura fire of her best Sarasate recordings. Of the other violinists who pair these concertos, I especially like Gil Shaham’s thrusting performance with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Phil, while Julia Fischer’s golden tone is wonderfully expansive with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under Yakov Kreizberg. All four play Joachim’s first-movement cadenza, Yang bringing it to a close with the most delicate series of trills.

Antoni Wit keeps the flowing oboe theme of the Adagio on the move, with almost an andante feel to the pacing, beautifully matched by Yang; and their finale goes with a real swing, almost as exciting as Shaham’s gypsy rondo.

It’s needs a strong duo to make a convincing case for the Double Concerto for violin and cello. Yang is persuasive but Schwabe cannot really match Daniel Müller-Schott (with Julia Fischer) for personality or Jian Wang (with Shaham) for tone; the cellist has to be quite demonstrative in taking the lead here. But Schwabe and Yang enjoy an amiable dialogue – this isn’t a concerto for virtuoso sparring – and their second-movement Andante really sings. Fischer and Müller-Schott’s disc would be my top pairing for these concertos but Yang and Schwabe offer plenty of mellow enjoyment along the way.