Maxim Vengerov now confronts - and conquers - one of the supreme challenges all great violinists must face: The Brahms violin concerto. This beautiful, virtuosic work has defined careers from Heifetz to Perlman. Vengerov's turn has come, and his rich, burnished tone and impassioned phrasing make this one of the standout concerto CDs of the year. The soulful partnership of Vengerov and Barenboim (one of his most important mentors) is also a strong selling point.

Daniel Barenboim continues his acclaimed Mozart concerto cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic, widely acknowledged among the greatest orchestras in the world. Barenboim, conducting from the piano, achieves an effortless collaboration with the orchestra, establishing himself once again as a premier Mozart interpreter. Barenboim's intricate playing and sensitive interpretation misses no detail of these works, and draws a warm and vigorous response from the Berliners.

The music of Wilhelm Killmayer needs no declaration of facts, nor a declaration of love. Like almost no other music it "emanates from itself", is autonomic. For the premiere of "fin al punto" (which was written for the twentieth anniversary of the Munich Chamber Orchestra) in 1971 Wilhelm Killmayer wrote the following text: "The calm already contains the catastrophe. Out of the calm grows the movement that drives itself to the furthest extreme of its powers, where it collapses. It is the point at which one gives up, beyond which one can escape into the open."

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Highlights / Barenboim, Furlanetto, Tomlinson, Salminen, Meier, Berlin Po, Et Al. Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Performer: Ferruccio Furlanetto, John Tomlinson, Matti Salminen, Waltraud Meier, Conductor: Daniel Barenboim, Orchestra/Ensemble: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus. Daniel Barenboim recorded K 492, K 527 & K 588 with the Berlin Phil in the early Nineties - those were the days. His Cosi is the best of the triptych.