I n a classical music world where virtuosity comes as standard, only a handful of soloists find themselves regularly described as a “phenomenon”. Korean violinist Inmo Yang is among them – and he’s still on the rise, more than a decade after his first major competition win and three years since making his UK debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor Sakari Oramo . Reunited here with the same musicians for Bartók’s early Violin Concerto No 1, Yang was all poise and passion, delivering the long, winding paragraph for the soloist that opens the work with characteristically supple elegance. His tone was tender – almost retro, in fact, in its natty sweetness – even in the more energetic portions of the second movement.

This was a performance drawn throughout in a lyrical cursive: lovely, but monochromatically earnest.…