It's the Myaskovsky that really makes this disc a 'must-have'. His Violin Concerto was premiered by David Oistrakh in Leningrad in 1939. As with Tchaikovsky's Concerto, the opening tutti plays for less than a minute and the slow movement is touchingly lyrical. The rather melancholy first movement is built on a grand scale and includes an expansive cadenza where Repin's mastery is virtually the equal of Oistrakh's. It's forceful music, epic in scale and earnestly argued, the sort of piece that Gergiev thrives on.
Listening to Repin's Tchaikovsky Concerto (his second recording of the work) confirms just how far he's journeyed in a few years.
Tone projection is stronger, attack more aggressive and his solo demeanour seems better focused than before, far more confident and spontaneous. Mixed in with these improvements are one or two affectations, but it's a cracking performance, one of the best from the younger generation. The recording sounds like a digital update of the sort of blowsy inyour- face sonics typical of the first stereo recordings of the late 1950s. Nevertheless, a fabulous disc.