Daniel Barenboim made his first studio recordings of the two Brahms concertos in the 60s, with John Barbirolli conducting the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and released another set in the 80s with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic. The earlier versions (still available as downloads on Warner Classics) are particularly impressive, weighty and intense. Alongside them these latest performances sound distinctly ordinary, taken from a series of concerts in Berlin last year in which Barenboim played both works in the same evening, with the Berlin Staatskapelle and Gustavo Dudamel conducting. There are magnificent things in both works, but they never add up to a consistent performance.

The second concerto is the more convincing; the first in D minor never really recovers from Dudamel’s leaden treatment of the opening tutti, out of which he conjures a massive, exaggerated climax. That unevenness seems to transmit itself to Barenboim’s approach too, which alternates between sovereign command and effortful detailing. The B flat concerto has its moments of self-conscious point-making too, but the sense of sweep and wholeness about the performance generally overrides them, and the searching account of the slow movement shows Barenboim and his orchestra at their best.