The first of our two CDs in this set opens with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, in which the soloist is Mishel Piastro. The performance comes from March, 1942, and will be a revelation for many listeners. Piastro is hardly known at all these days, but he was the leader of the Philharmonic under Toscanini and, of course, under Barbirolli. He was, as we may hear, an absolutely astounding violinist – it is rumoured that someone remarked to Fritz Kreisler that ‘Piastro is so gifted but he’s lazy and doesn’t practise’, to which Kreisler replied, ‘Thank God!’ The second CD in this set of performances opens with the world premiere performance of the Piano Concerto by Mischa Portnoff. This Concerto is, as can readily be heard, a dazzlingly effective work, with extremely virtuosic writing for the soloist, composed in a style perhaps best described as a mixture of the then contemporary music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich rather than, say, that of Stravinsky. The soloist was the Lithuanian-born but American naturalised pianist Nadia Reisenberg (1904-83), whose family settled in New York after the Russian Revolution.

The works in this set receive brilliant – not to say breathtaking – performances from the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York, the members of which were clearly relishing the opportunity to display their virtuosity under a conductor who by that time had won over the hearts and minds of every musician taking part.