This recording completes a circular journey for Jennifer Koh. In 1992 the American violinist was conducted by Alexander Vedernikov in the final round of the very first International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. In the same year, she debuted with the Odense Symphony Orchestra. Now, all three are united in a recording of Tchaikovsky’s complete works for violin and orchestra.

Koh’s sound is toasty warm, a golden darkness to her lower register, with lashings of vibrato. Her reading of the Concerto is expansive. Like the river in Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood, it is grown-up, knows exactly where it’s going and is in no particular hurry to get there. It’s a comfortable reading to really wallow in. Koh’s playing is assured in the Allegro moderato, full of romantic yearning, the dynamics in the fiendish cadenza beautifully gradated. The sluggish tempo of the Canzonetta is definitely slower than crotchet=84 – for which Vedernikov must shoulder some of the blame – and many will feel it meanders without any sense of purpose. Although the finale is also slower than usual, it is rhythmically taut, which stops it from sagging. A stately reading, then, without the fire of Vadim Repin, but without the idiosyncrasies of Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s perverse account.

This disc’s most direct competition comes from Julia Fischer and the splendid Ilya Kaler, who also include the minor concertante works. The Sérénade mélancolique is gloopy enough without Koh spinning it out further, although her approach is better suited to the Souvenir d’un lieu cher, here in Glazunov’s syrupy orchestration. To give an idea of Koh’s pacing, this disc comes in at six minutes longer than Fischer’s, seven more than Kaler’s.