Brahms: Double Concerto; Clarinet Quintet, Capuçon/ Capuçon/ Gustav Mahler JO/ Chung/ Meyer/ Capuçon Quartet

There's something totally compelling about this performance of the Double Concerto from the first few bars, when Gautier Capuçon launches into the opening cello solo with a rhapsodic freedom and expressive abandon that seems to sweep all before it, gathering first his brother Renaud's violin playing and then the Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchestra and conductor Myung-Whun Chung into the same unstoppable flood of lyricism. The slow movement is an ardent, ecstatic song, the finale a joyous, folksy celebration, with the intensely musical Capuçons squeezing every drop of expressiveness out of each phrase. That sense of heightened emotion runs through the Clarinet Quintet, too, where what is conventionally presented as autumnal wistfulness - the senior composer looking back in calm contemplation - acquires an edge of unease, as if not all those memories have lost their sting. The performance is outstanding; this is all exceptional Brahms playing.