I have owned and loved the same recordings of the Prokofiev & Mozart concertos on vinyl for many years, and when the record started to skip, I bought this CD; I was very pleased with the sound, which is rich and well-textured. Oistrakh's performance on the Prokofiev is incredibly emotional yet balanced, and he brings a very different and appropriate style to the Mozart. These two pieces deserve 5 stars.
I gave it 4 stars because the performances of the Brahms double and Beethoven triple were less exciting to me, and the sound quality is lower. The orchestra sound on the Brahms is rougher and less rich than on Prokofiev & Mozart, while the Beethoven orchestra sound is muddy with too much bass. Oistrakh also recorded the Brahms & Beethoven with Rostropovich and (on the Beethoven) Richter, but I have not heard that disk (it got mostly good reviews, at least for the Brahms). Here he plays the Brahms with Fournier, also an excellent cellist, and I liked the performance, but I'd never heard of the two other soloists on the Beethoven (Sviatoslav Knushevitsky, cello and Lev Oborin, piano), although they sound quite competent. I've never liked the Beethoven triple so it's hard for me to review it; it seems plodding and pedantic in all the performances I've heard, including this one.
