[Kreisler jr]

I think this concerto is often played too grand, slowish and "tragic" (although it is good enough to work with different approaches). It's a dramatic, energetic, youthful piece, actually very different from Mozart's in the same key. The finale is rather humorous.
My favorite recordings are probably Rubinstein/Toscanini, Serkin/Bernstein, Ashkenazy/Solti (probably the most massive, almost brutal orchestral contribution).

 

[Kreisler jr]

I don't know the Fleisher/Szell (only their 5th which is good although IMO not quite as great as its reputation but I could never be bothered to get the others). There are so many recordings, I own or have listened to about 15 of them. Another favorite although more conventional is Kovacevich/Davis. Argerich/Abbado is let down a bit by small scale conducting, IIRC. But in general it's music I rarely listen to nowadays because I heard it so often since my teenage days.

 

[Kreisler jr]

Supposedly Rubinstein/Toscanini didn't get along very well at the first rehearsal but eventually it worked out fine for the actual recording. Neither of them were young then but they had more fire than many youngsters. In the older Rubinstein collection from the late 1990s this was coupled with to similarly lively sonatas (op.31/3 and 57) from the 1940s.

I think it was also the Beethoven concerto Gould played most frequently when he was still playing concerts. I only know the studio recording (with Bernstein, slow, but one of the few slow versions I still find interesting) but there are several live/bootlegs, among them one with Karajan/Berlin.

 

[Kreisler jr]

I wonder where you got your "general consensus" on violin concertos? I would not argue with them - they are all great. Maybe you should start with the "general consensus" for piano concertos. It would more likely include Beethoven's 5th PC than his 3rd. The other 4 IMHO would be Tchaikovsky 1, Rachmaninov 2, Schumann, and Mozart 20. But it's very hard to limit it to five and my choices might change daily.

I am pretty sure that Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelsohn are the most popular, most played/recorded violin concertos. Sibelius is at least a very good candidate for the next, together with Bruch' g minor, maybe Mozart 5th, or one of Prokofiev's.
For piano I also think that Tchaikovsky 1, Rach 2, Beethoven 5 are at the top; the Grieg might be even more popular than Schumann. I think that no single Mozart concerto dominates sufficiently to get to the top 5, and I'd think that K 467 or 488 are more popular than 466.