Whatever the corporate strength of the Berlin Philharmonic, it is also an ensemble of famous soloists. No surprise then to find the orchestra’s own label launching a digital series displaying these exceptional talents. In the wake of his peerless account of Bartók’s Viola Concerto (Alpha, A/23), it must have been an easy decision to include a showcase for Amihai Grosz, first principal viola. Captured live in 2017 and 2023, the present pairing proves mightily impressive without necessarily eclipsing relevant competition.

The compromises associated with concert recording are least evident in Martinů’s Rhapsody-Concerto, where the soloist’s dark-toned Gasparo da Salò instrument sounds surpassingly eloquent against the Berliners’ soft-sheen sonority. Standing in for an indisposed Simon Rattle, composer-conductor Matthias Pintscher in his first appearance with the orchestra since 2015 elects not to fabricate an excessively intimate or ‘rural’ atmosphere. Timothy Ridout, the British viola player who has recently played the work alongside Rattle’s Bavarian outfit, made his own, less string-heavy commercial recording with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra (Claves, 5/20). The piece casts a potent spell either way, alighting on pockets of surreally intense feeling amid its wistful reverie. The traditional texture – melody plus accompaniment rather than a melee of independent voices – works well enough as miked in Berlin’s Philharmonie. A shame to have dropped Martinů’s Madrigal No 1 for violin and viola, given as an encore in the hall with concertmaster Noah Bendix Balgley. Running time is not exactly generous.

I had more doubts about the Walton (the usual revised version). From the first the composer weaves a subtle web in which the viola is the first among equals, meshing with the orchestra. The playing as such can scarcely be faulted but with the viola foregrounded to compensate for its relative lack of sonic penetration some key lines and harmonies get a little lost. Surprisingly perhaps, Grosz and/or his conductor can be as slow as Yehudi Menuhin and the composer in their ‘autumnal’ late-Sixties LP recording (Warner, 4/70). While rendered plausible by various celebrities under André Previn’s wilier direction, the languid approach is not the only way to go. James Ehnes and Edward Gardner (Chandos, 6/18) move the argument on, lending the opening paragraph a sense of direction lacking in Berlin, albeit with someone audibly humming along! The climax of Walton’s central Vivo, con molto preciso is tense and tight at the Philharmonie. This is not a performance in which the concerto’s grab bag of nostalgic longing and jazz-age pizzazz feels wholly natural however sensational Grosz’s double-stopping.

That the Berliners first presented the Walton Concerto in its original scoring in 1958 is one of several nuggets to be gleaned from bilingual annotations long on contextual information and interview. The soloist then was William Primrose, generally frisky in this piece, in unlikely partnership with Karl Böhm. I’m not sure why Grosz describes the increasingly ubiquitous Martinů as ‘no longer often performed’. What matters is that he does it proud. Visual presentation is attractive with ample photographs.