第二小提琴协奏曲 (Sz 112)，第一狂想曲 (Sz 87)，第二狂想曲 (Sz 90)

This recording was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Awards for "Best Classical Album" and "Best Instrumental Solosist(s) Performance (with Orchestra)."
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, and Béla Bartók have become a winning combination. Three of the Chicago/Boulez Bartók recordings which preceded this one received Grammy Awards. Boulez has developed his relationship with the Chicago over Bartók's music, through countless rehearsals and performances. The results are stunning, time and time again. Here, young violinist Gil Shaham is added to the mix for performances which strike directly to the works' cores.
The Second Concerto comes from the early days of World War II and is a delicious blend of modal touches, Hungarian flavors, and crunchy not-quite-diatonic harmonies. The two Rhapsodies were written almost ten years earlier--originally for violin and piano, but orchestrated soon after--and evoke Hungarian and Romanian dances and tunes. Shaham tears into the solo parts with tremendous energy, and their virtuosic passages fairly fly off the page. Boulez and Chicago back him with power and sensitivity, their command of the music (or, perhaps, the music's command of them) complete. The recordings were made following a series of highly acclaimed concerts in late 1998, and DG would seem to have produced another winner.