I confess I have problems with Mordkovitch's work. Here is a fearless, highly volatile player outsize in manner and sound. I don't dispute the formidable personality, the scale and profile of her playing; I can respect the technique. But I do, more often than not, part company with her on fundamental questions of musical taste. Such responses are highly subjective, of course, but so much of what Mordkovitch does strikes me as overripe and overwrought. I long for a pure, simply inflected legato such as one should find at the opening of the First Concerto. Compare Mordkovitch with any of the players listed above: her tone is at once charged and unsettled, her line far from spun-silk and coloured with an implied, if not explicit, impatience. She conveys little of the melody's high-flown fantasy and is presently urging the music forward, forcing her bow arm lunging aggressively at every accent. There must be greater contrast, a more tenuous balance here between the fragile, intensely lyrical, and the diabolical elements of the piece. Sitkovetsky shows us exactly how to achieve it in his Virgin Classics recording. Mordkovitch, if you like, tells only half the story. The fantastic fairytale shimmer at the close of the first and third movements comes upon my ears far too literally, and in passing I would question Chandos's, or Jarvi's, over-prominent harp balance.
Speaking of balance, nobody has yet matched DG's Mintz/Abbado version as a recording—the integration there between soloist and orchestra is nigh on perfect. Mordkovitch sounds close, if not Perlman-close (EMI), but since hers is anyway a larger-than-life presence, when she does tear with a vengeance into the first movement development the effect is horribly overbearing. I'd say she crosses that precarious musical line here between a primitive excitement and the merely ugly. At least the scherzo's assorted squawks, shrieks and sul ponticello slitherings all achieve their desired effect (if, again, without Sitkovetsky's unbelievable transformations of tone-colour). I also like the dry, eerie piano that she and Jarvi pull off in the middle section (at 2'47'').
In general, the Second Concerto comes off the better of the two, though that long, seemingly inexhaustible cantabile of the Andante has none of Sitkovetsky's improvisatory feel, as if the line were being created in the playing of it. I have misgivings, too, about the pacing and pointing of the outer movements, both a touch frenetic under pressure (the latter, at the expense of rhythmic swagger—a devilish glint in the eye). For real inspiration and imagination, then, the Sitkovetsky/Davis version is the one to have, but do sample first if you can: the close-miked Virgin Classics recording is not ideal.'