I recently came across the YouTube file below of the legendary David Oistrakh in a 1965 performance of the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 in D-Major, K.218, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Maurice Abravanel is the conductor. Note: there is no actual video footage of the performance, but the audio is still worth your time. Enjoy!
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All is Yar 
Maybe it is because i studied this very piece with him, but i really think that he was extremely convincing in Mozart’s concertos. The recordings that he made a few years after this one, in early 1970s, of all Mozart’s music for violin and orchestra (including Sinfonia Concertante in which he was the solo violist) with the Berliners, leading them himself without a conductor, are among my favorites. The first thing i remember him telling me about playing this concerto was that the composer was in his late teens when he wrote it, just as i was at the time, and so it should be performed with abundance of youthful energy and optimism. Another tip was to always remember that Mozart was a very operatic composer and so different phrases should sound like conversation of various operatic characters.
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Thanks for sharing his words of advice to you. I’ve never thought of it that way, and of course it makes complete sense.
This is the first time I’ve heard a recording of him doing Mozart and I thought it was outstanding.
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MarK, I agree with you. I have those Mozart/Oistrakh recordings with the Berliners: Wonderful!
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