Previn’s Violin Concerto begins with a deep sigh in the lower strings and a series of wistful horn calls that set up the solo violin’s entrance – a singing, soaring tune of markedly Straussian character. Knowing that the work was composed expressly for Previn’s new bride, it’s more or less what I expected to hear. Indeed, the first movement, despite some significant passages of grittier, more rhythmically restless writing, sounds like the modern equivalent of Korngold’s sweetly nostalgic cinemascope romanticism.

The second movement came as a shock, however, for the mood here is overwhelmingly desolate and sometimes even grief-stricken. Listen, for instance, to the violin’s ghostly entrance at 1'20". Yes, Previn’s lyrical impulse is always apparent, but this hardly sounds like a love letter. Even those few rays of sunlight that do filter in seem to be quickly extinguished (try 3'40", for example). The finale brightens a bit, with some humorous turns and plenty of ecstatic melodic flights that put a lump in one’s throat, yet the concerto’s tragic conclusion took my breath away the first time I heard it – not just because it was so unexpected but because it’s so darkly beautiful. I’ve listened to the concerto repeatedly over the past few days with increasing affection and admiration.

Mutter’s performance is simply miraculous. She dances nimbly through the thorniest passages and gives a silky sheen to even the most stratospherically placed notes. Previn’s score is vividly coloured but he never lets the orchestra get in the soloist’s way, and under his supple direction the Boston Symphony play with an ideal mixture of sumptuousness and delicacy.

Bernstein’s Serenade makes an excellent companion and not only because it dispels the melancholy of the Previn Concerto’s ‘surprise’ ending. I wasn’t sure that Mutter’s temperament would be ideally suited to Bernstein’s jazzy syncopations. I needn’t have worried, though. She may not swing as naturally as Hilary Hahn or Joshua Bell, but she plays with great élan, and the sinewy intensity she brings to the lyrical sections is the most moving since Isaac Stern’s 1956 composer-led recording. Previn, certainly, is right at home in this repertoire, and he elicits a gutsy performance from the LSO.