Here is a delightful package for admirers of the great violinists of the 1950s captured on a regular arts television programme of the time. Heifetz, Milstein and Kogan may be missing but there is still much to enjoy, starting with a splendid rendition of Saint-Saens’s Introduction and Rondo capriccioso by Isaac Stern (1959).

Zino Francescatti looks and sounds as dapper as ever in Debussy’s La Fille aux cheveux de lin and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen (1959); and Mischa Elman is a little out of tune but still beguiling in Wieniawski and Kreisler. Erica Morini brings a breath of old Vienna to the finale of Bruch’s G minor Concerto (1963) and the Oistrakhs are as inseparable as usual in the last two movements of the Bach ‘Double’ (1963).

I could have done without two versions of the finale to Tchaikovsky’s Concerto, especially as Ruggiero Ricci (1964) is far more characterful, though rougher, than Michael Rabin (1960). The latter also sports a most unflattering hairpiece which he has jettisoned by 1962, when he is more convincing in two Kreisler trifles.

Yehudi Menuhin is musical but miscast in the last two movements of the Paganini D major Concerto (1963)–and he makes a hash of the harmonics. As a bonus we have Gregor Piatigorsky playing well within himself in Faure and Saint-Saens (1960).

Students can see some terrific bow arms in action and all the pieces or movements are as complete as they would be in concert. The performances are revealing: Stern manages the odd smile; Rabin looks careworn. Sound quality is good for the time and the accompaniments by Donald Voorhees (once with piano, the rest with the Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra) are square but prompt.