I had half forgotten about Julian Sitkovetky, until Andrew Rose and Pristine Audio released his Sibelius violin concerto (1953) and Paganini second concerto (1955). Sitkovetsky was quite a violinist, with an incredible technique combined with a patrician musicality and an impassioned, noble sound. Distinctive and unforgettable. He had a short life and a truncated recording career, but these two concertos really enthralled me this evening (hard to do, at this stage, with the Sibelius concerto; and even harder with Paganini's second concerto to which I have never really taken). But Sitkovetsky gripped me for nearly an hour.

The transfers are certainly a big improvement on the old Russian Disc / Arlecchino attempts (no great feat, but welcome, nevertheless). Let us hope and pray that Andrew Rose now turns his attention to Sitkovetsky's Romanian Radio performance of the Khachaturian violin concerto (conducted by Niyazi); that is one of the most coruscating, searing performances of a violin concerto ever recorded.