I just critically listened to 2 versions of the Brahms concerto performed by Oistrakh back-to-back (which is no easy task folks; it's a 40 minute long concerto) and here are my impressions. The two recordings compared were the 1954 recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Franz Konwitschny conducting on Deutche Grammophon and the 1963 live recording with USSR State Symphony Orchestra and Kyrill Kondrashin conducting on the Revelation label. According to the insert on the live recording, "The REVELATION catalogue represents one of the most important discoveries of the century - over 400,000 tapes, most of them never heard before... All the performances are live and therefore you will feel as if you are seated there amongst the musicians, sharing the ambiance of the concert hall and the entharallment that only comes from a live performance." I italicized that passage because I felt that this was what made the difference between the two recordings.
The 1954 performance is definitely better excecuted. In the live one, there were errors that just happen during live concerts. A few notes missed, nothing serious at all. In a live setting, there's so much more adrenaline pumping through the system. It's impossible to recreate that kind of energy when you're in an empty hall playing for a microphone. Both performances are excellent, but I found the live one to be more moving; I found myself on the verge of tears in certian spots.
Oistrakh, to me, is the only violinist that succeeded in expressing the enormous breadth of this work. It requires really noble playing, almost as much as in Beethoven's concerto. Restrained, yet with firey passion... That is how this piece must be played. And Oistrakh does it so perfectly.