Gramophone Magazine
March 2024
Editor's Choice

BBC Music Magazine
April 2024
Concerto Choice

Baiba Skride (violin), ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop

Britten: Violin Concerto in D minor Op. 15
Britten: Double Concerto

The story of the discovery and resurrection of Britten’s Double Concerto for Violin and Viola is one of those rare musicological moments that can capture the interest of even the casual music lover. Britten had started composing it as a very young man but never quite finished it, even though the work had progressed quite far. So, it was only after his death that the premiere took place, in 1997. Unlike that work, the Violin Concerto, Op. 15 found itself immediately thrust onto the world’s musical stage, its genesis having been rather straightforward, if hardly smooth. Britten had left Great Britain before the outbreak of World War II in Europe and so he composed it in Canada and the US.

"Skride is on top of everything the score throws at her and the synergy of the Latvian soloist with an American conductor in Vienna works wonders...An indispensable new Britten album." - Gramophone Magazine, March 2024