Italian-born Francesca Dego returns to the successful formula of her debut concerto disc (DG, 2/18), pairing an Italian rarity with an established classic central to her repertoire. With Brahms in lieu of Paganini, Busoni’s ‘unpretentious’ composition of 1897 takes over from Wolf-Ferrari. The new programme makes sense not least because Busoni’s own cadenza for the Brahms is played. It was written in 1913, by which time his idiom had moved into more experimental territory.

You’ll have to explore the soloist’s accompanying notes to see what she means (only half in jest) by ‘push[ing] back on the whole “forty, with a beard” idea!’ But tastes change and there has been a general reversion to swifter pacing and smaller forces in Brahms. Dego and Dalia Stasevska establish their own mix of restraint and exuberance, setting less store by inexorable development and immaculate finish than a sense of improvisatory freedom. Trying to think Brahms afresh is not without risks. While no texture is allowed to coagulate, some will consider the music-making choppy or mannered. The audibility of the timpani throughout makes perfect sense though, given the concept of Busoni’s first-movement cadenza. This kicks off with a percussive intervention harking back to the violin’s initial entry. It’s as if Busoni is querying the violin’s conventional role before low strings contribute their own spooky, motivically ingenious valediction. The Adagio is lighter, sweeter and perhaps more sentimental than usual, the finale inventive, Mendelssohnian and not without the odd iffy swoop. The informality of its denouement is ‘like someone sharing a funny story at a party’ (the Utah Arts Review on Dego’s Mozart, relevant here too).

For those resistant to unpredictable Brahms, two rival versions also include Busoni’s cadenza. (Both, as it happens, feature female soloists.) Lisa Batiashvili is free without being as fantastical as Dego, more conventionally polished and lyrical. Just reissued by Harmonia Mundi, Isabelle Faust is direct, particularly in her tautly conceived opening movement, a much closer recording still sounding well. Veteran listeners might contend that none of these accomplished soloists can hold a candle to Ida Haendel’s broad, authoritative sweep in 1953 – aided and abetted but surely not initiated by the podium presence of Sergiu Celibidache. Then again, the story and the sound have moved on.

Where Batiashvili and Faust offer chamber fare, Dego scores with the relevance of her full-scale coupling, timpani and solo violin again frequently juxtaposed. Busoni’s outer movements sparkle bewitchingly, the central Quasi andante striking deepest. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to identify the composer. With (deliberate?) cribs from more familiar violin concertos, Brahms’s above all, the generic anonymity of its material must explain why the work has attracted so few front-ranking soloists – only Joseph Szigeti, Adolf Busch and Frank Peter Zimmermann spring to mind. That and its preposterous difficulty. There’s no mistaking Dego’s commitment for this is another detailed, deeply personal reading. Indeed, the playing seems to me more technically dazzling than in the Brahms. Chandos provides full annotations and the recording made in Croydon’s revamped Fairfield Halls is clean and lustrous.