I first heard Julia Fischer in 1995 as a 12-year-old in the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition. Not only did she win outright in the junior category, she was manifestly more inspired than anyone in the senior category. A DVD of The Four Seasons aside (BBC/Opus Arte, 12/02), we have had to wait until now for her first CD. As she explains in the booklet-notes, she has an abiding love of the Khachaturian Concerto, a work she found impossible to sell to concert-promoters.

The freshness of her way with the Khachaturian, recorded last May in Moscow, is immediately striking in the chattering figuration of the opening, and she brings a rare tenderness to the lyrical second subject. The orchestral sound is impressive, too. Though Itzhak Perlman and Lydia Mordkovitch produce a beefier sound, the refinement of Fischer’s performance makes it equally compelling. This concerto has claims to be the composer’s finest work, claims which the yearning tenderness of the slow movement support. The clarity of Fischer’s performance in the finale brings lightness and sparkle.

In the Glazunov, too, it is the clarity and subtlety of Fischer’s playing that marks her reading out. She finds the tenderness of the slow middle section of this one-movement work, and gives an easy swing to the bouncy rhythms of the final section. In the Prokofiev, she takes a meditative view of the wistful melodies, the element, she says, that most attracts her, even if she does not quite reach the depths of Kyung-Wha Chung’s version.

A unique coupling, superbly recorded, that could hardly be more recommendable.