The shortlist for this year's Concerto category features music by Ravel, Beethoven, Martinů, Elgar, Saint-Saëns, Stravinsky and more, and – remarkably – includes two recordings by Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth. Last year's winning recording in the Concerto category was violin concertos by Bartók, Beethoven and Berg by Frank-Peter Zimmermann with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding and Kirill Petrenko.

You can explore this year's six nominees below, or the complete Shortlist in our free digital magazine.

Concerto Award 2023: The Shortlist

Beethoven. Stravinsky

Beethoven Violin Concerto, Op 61 Stravinsky Violin Concerto

Vilde Frang vn Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen / Pekka Kuusisto

Warner Classics

Once into the fray, Frang is her own master, a confident, highly imaginative player, flexible in the extreme, and come the now obligatory (it seems) ‘cadenza with timps’, fearlessly assertive. Her handling of the Larghetto is a model of composure, her tone again extremely pure and untrammelled by externally applied emotion (a description, that, not a prejudice), while Pekka Kuusisto and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen are attentive to every small detail in the accompaniment. The finale truly dances and is visited more than once by short cadential passages from the woodwinds. What we have here is one of the freshest and most engaging accounts of the Beethoven around, a ‘must-hear’, though some readers will still occasionally gravitate to the reverent, warm-hearted Old Guard, as will I... Rob Cowan

Elgar. Bloch

Bloch Suite for Viola and Orchestra, B41 Elgar Viola (Cello) Concerto, Op 85

Timothy Ridout va BBC Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins

Harmonia Mundi

The first thing worth mentioning about this remarkable recording is the sound, an Andrew Keener production with engineer Dave Rowell where, for the Elgar Concerto, the mighty tuttis are drawn into the foreground without leaving the viola stranded as a shrinking violet. In principle Lionel Tertis’s transcription shouldn’t really work; unlike, say, Bartók’s ascetic masterpiece, and in spite of its underlying sense of sadness, the Elgar is a fully fledged heroic concerto where, beyond the opening recitative (rendered somewhat motherly on the smaller instrument), the orchestra rises to a very considerable height. Timothy Ridout is a strong, personable player whose deft handling of the Scherzo and heartfelt playing of the Adagio make the concerto’s central episodes exceptionally memorable. He also elevates the opening recitative to a level of defiance that most cello-led alternatives can’t quite manage. All this would be impossible without Martyn Brabbins’s achingly beautiful BBC SO accompaniment (witness the murmured return of the opening theme at 6’32”)... Rob Cowan

Kalabis. Krása. Martinů

Kalabis Harpsichord Concerto, Op 42 Krása Kammermusik Martinů Harpsichord Concerto, H246

Mahan Esfahani hpd Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra / Alexander Liebreich

Hyperion

I may be genetically conditioned to adore this repertoire, but this new album from Mahan Esfahani is an unalloyed joy from first chord to last. Martinů, Krása and Kalabis all on one programme: what’s not to like? Of course, sometimes expectations run wild ahead of actuality, but not here. If I encounter an album as good as this one this year I will be overjoyed!... Guy Rickards

Ravel

Two Piano Concertos. Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. Deux Mélodies hébraïques. Pavane pour une infante défunte. Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé. Sainte

Cédric Tiberghien pf Stéphane Degout bar Les Siècles / François-Xavier Roth

Harmonia Mundi

From the first bar of the G major, what strikes anew is Ravel’s originality in terms of instrumental combinations. Needless to say, my listening notes ran to dozens of examples, but I’m going to have restrict myself to just a few. These are the sort of performances that pull you back to the score, checking details you’d never fully noticed previously. Tiberghien brings to the first movement a sense of playful energy, flexibility and an acute awareness of colour (for instance, in his dark-hued bass scales from 3’30”, which have a lovely clarity to them), while passages such as the harp cadenza against sustained cello (4’29”) have you revelling in Ravel’s invention afresh. Tiberghien imbues the long solo-piano opening of the Adagio with such a confiding quality that you don’t want it to end, but when it does, it’s with the gentlest of flute responses, followed by equally subtle oboe and clarinet. Another highlight is the plangent cor anglais solo a little further on (from 6’18”), Tiberghien whispering the accompaniment. The Presto is glistening and fast-paced but never in danger of losing control, the wind players enjoying their moments in the sun, be it the jazzy E flat clarinet, trombone glissandos, shrieking piccolo or virtuoso bassoon. Throughout, Tiberghien is very much the glue holding the piece together and the cumulative effect is irresistible... Harriet Smith

Saint-Saëns

Piano Concertos – No 1, Op 17; No 2, Op 22. Africa, Op 89. Allegro appassionato, Op 70. Rhapsodie d’Auvergne, Op 73. Valse-Caprice, ‘Wedding Cake’, Op 76

Alexandre Kantorow pf Tapiola Sinfonietta / Jean-Jacques Kantorow

BIS

There is a palpable exuberance and joy in the way these works come across, none more so in the four concertante works for piano and orchestra, the effervescent Wedding Cake caprice, Rhapsodie d’Auvergne (an early use of French folk song, years ahead of d’Indy and Canteloube), Allegro appassionato (not the better-known work for cello with the same title) and Africa (who else was using North African folk music at this time?).

The album also includes the woefully neglected Piano Concerto No 1, with its opening horn call reminding us of the end of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto. If the rousing finale doesn’t hook you, then try the haunting slow movement with its prescient passages not only of its successor but of the kind of impressionistic writing that anticipates Ravel by half a century... Jeremy Nicholas

Stravinsky

Violin Concerto. Apollon musagète – Variation d’Apollon. Concertino. Double Canon. Pastorale. Three Pieces

Isabelle Faust vn Les Siècles / François-Xavier Roth

Harmonia Mundi

So this is the Stravinsky Violin Concerto I have so often seen on the page but rarely heard in performance. Three-dimensional – with a startling inner clarity and rhythmic keenness that brings if off the page in ways you couldn’t imagine. Honestly, it’s like having one’s ears freshly syringed.

Part of the delight – and it is heightened by choices in the rest of this beautifully curated programme – is the sense of ‘interaction’ (in the chamber music sense), of the soloist in more of a concertante role so that the cast of characters in Stravinsky’s motley ensemble can truly make their presence felt and impact on both each other and the soloist in ways that sound spontaneous, indeed almost improvisational... Edward Seckerson

Explore all of this year's shortlisted albums in our FREE digital magazine – out now!