Aural histories, the next gen

It might seem sheer folly for young artists to make new recordings of well-known concertos. They are competing with the great soloists of the past 100 years in a marketplace glutted with standard repertory. Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” to take but one example, has been recorded more than 200 times. Still, we count on each new crop of musicians to keep music alive.

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Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1-5

James Ehnes, violin and conductor. Mozart Anniversary Orchestra.

(CBC Records)

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Mozart: Violin

Concerto No. 3

Baiba Skride, violin. Kammerorchester Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Hartmut Haenchen, conductor.

(Sony Classical)

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Mozart: Violin Concertos

Nos. 2 and 3

Julia Fischer, violin. Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. Yakov Kreizberg, conductor.

(PentaTone)

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THE violin concerto competition is intense this Mozart 250th birthday year. The popular violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter and Andrew Manze have just put out outstanding high-profile Mozart concerto recordings. But the freshness factor of these new faces is not to be discounted. All three violinists contribute their own cadenzas, which helps make their interpretations novel. Ehnes, a Canadian, is the most operatic, and that gives him the edge. Skride has a delicate tone and a sensitivity for period style; she fills out her disc with two small rondos, by Mozart and Schubert, along with a violin concerto by Michael Haydn (Joseph’s younger brother) that isn’t very interesting. Fischer wins points for her gorgeously robust tone (and for the CD’s Super Audio sound), but she has the least character.

-- M.S.