This is the fifth disc that Nicola Benedetti has recorded for DG since her remarkable win in the BBC Young Musician of the Year contest seven years ago when she was only 16. Till now, rather surprisingly but with great success, her discs have offered relatively rare repertory including new pieces by such composers as James MacMillan and John Tavener, but here for the first time she launches out on the central repertory in the much-repeated Bruch G minor and Tchaikovsky Violin Concertos.

It makes an excellent coupling, and Benedetti’s interpretations have much that is individual in them, notably that more regularly than most great virtuosos on disc she uses very often the gentlest of whispered pianissimos, with impressive effect. She establishes that quality in the long first movement of the Tchaikovsky, where so many artists in the lyrical second subject play with a big, fat tone. Her phrasing too is freely expressive, but her regular use of extreme rubato rarely if ever sounds contrived, always spontaneous and from the heart.

The second movement Canzonetta is taken dangerously slowly, but Benedetti sustains it well with no hint of self-consciousness and again with magical pianissimos. The finale is extreme in the opposite direction, very fast indeed, again with big tonal and dynamic contrasts, leading up to a thrilling coda.

The Bruch is just as compelling. The first movement is deeply meditative with exceptionally clean and precise double-stopping. As in the Tchaikovsky the slow movement is unusually slow and played with much rubato, but the result is deeply thoughtful and well sustained with inner tensions conveyed, while Jakub Hr≤≈a draws from the Czech Philharmonic playing that’s just as free in use of rubato, a tribute to the players’ responsiveness and to his control.

The finale is then cleanly done and kept in relatively strict time, not pulled about in the face of technical difficulties. Altogether a very competitive coupling of two of the great violin warhorses, a credit to a fine young artist and her associates.