All three of these performances are live, the Violin Concerto and Seven Early Songs captured in 2018, while the Three Orchestral Pieces date from three years earlier.

This account of the Concerto makes for interesting comparison with Shaham’s earlier reading (also live) with the Dresden Staatskapelle. Though he’s very forwardly balanced on this newer recording – perhaps too much so – this is in general an even more nuanced reading, more overtly troubled in places. The very opening bars tell much about a violinist’s approach and here Shaham is quick to warm from restrained huskiness to eloquence, less reined in than Isabelle Faust, who has the perfect partner in Claudio Abbado. As the writing gets more worked up (from 2'27") prior to the introduction of the Carinthian folk song (at 4'47"), Shaham perhaps smooths over the edginess a little too much. But the sense of organic development is wonderfully realised and his playing is unfailingly pristine, even in the stratosphere.

Shaham and MTT are equally alive to the drama unleashed at the start of the second half of the concerto, and the way it builds to a massive climax is searing indeed. As the music finally quietens down to the rapturous restraint of the Bach chorale there’s no lack of ardent longing, compared to which Faust offers a more inward style of mourning. If there are occasional moments of almost Hollywoodesque Romanticism, the closing bars are unquestionably potent, with the sense of unease judged just right.

Though I have a major soft spot for Barbara Hannigan’s account of Berg’s Seven Early Songs with pianist Reinbert de Leeuw (Alpha, 12/18), I’ve generally found them eminently more satisfying in their orchestral garb. The American soprano Susanna Phillips brings beauty and a potent sense of narrative to their varying moods and is vividly supported by the orchestra. Phillips relishes their late-Romantic leanings, enjoying the lushness of the line in ‘Nacht’ and emphasising the heightened voluptuousness of ‘Sommertage’ rather more than Anne Sofie von Otter, who instead combines a modernity and sense of urgency. Phillips is also alive to the intensity of Rilke’s text in ‘Traumgekrönt’ and has the requisite flexibility across the range demanded by ‘Im Zimmer’.

To the Three Pieces for Orchestra MTT imparts a real understanding of their lavish colouration while always maintaining a sure sense of line and clarity of texture. The Prelude has an apt sense of majesty, the climaxes epic, the brass imparting a thrilling edge to the proceedings. In the Round Dance MTT manages the shifts in mood and tempo with complete inevitability and he’s as alive to its moments of extreme delicacy – the solo violin, for instance – as to the orchestra playing at full tilt. The closing March reminds us of Berg’s adoration for Mahler, and MTT – great Mahlerian that he is – brings to life the extraordinary orchestration with a brilliance that is maintained right down to the cataclysmic final chord.