The first thing I noticed was the spectacular fidelity of the recording and how beautifully the harp arpeggios are captured at the very beginning of Harold in Italy. One unique feature of this recording of Berlioz’s strange concertante work/tone-poem hybrid is the restoration of virtuosic passages in the first movement, expressly composed for the dedicatee, Paganini, and later suppressed by Berlioz (why has it taken so long for someone to restore them?).

Carpenter’s tone is sumptuous but the quintessentially elegiac voice of his viola is enlivened with wonderfully mercurial flashes from both the soloist and Ashkenazy with the hyper-alert orchestra. The pilgrims seem a happy band and the Serenade of the Abruzzi mountaineer to his sweetheart is winsomely played by the American violist. The final movement, The Brigands’ Orgy, is particularly dramatic. I don’t think anyone can surpass Charles Munch in his old Boston performance on RCA, but these forces come close.

Among modern competitors, I’d put Sir Colin Davis and Tabea Zimmermann (LSO Live) and Lorin Maazel’s New York Philharmonic version with Cynthia Phelps (Deutsche Grammophon) on the same level. The only problem I had with this release was the choice of fill-ups. The Beatrice and Benedict overture is fine but Paganini’s Sonata per la Gran Viola e Orchestra is really rather meagre fare. It would have been more satisfying to hear this fine young player in Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher or the Bartók or Walton concertos.