Gramophone Concerto Award 2024: Britten’s Violin Concerto

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

A Britten Violin Concerto that stands out, from Isabelle Faust with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Jakub Hrůša

That Isabelle Faust’s recording of Britten’s Violin Concerto follows so closely on the heels of Baiba Skride’s (3/24), Kerson Leong’s (7/23) and Augustin Hadelich’s (A/22) – all of them selected as an Editor’s Choice – bears witness to the remarkable speed with which this work has entered the core repertoire in recent years. Indeed, Skride’s Orfeo recording was nominated alongside Faust’s for this year’s Gramophone Awards. It seems players today must cast their nets wider to make an impact in a crowded market, so where Beethoven, Bruch and Brahms once commanded the scene, Britten has now joined Berg as a ‘fifth B’ (how his mother would beam with pride!) in the violin pantheon.

This is sure to become a modern benchmark for the Concerto

So why has Faust triumphed? The principal reason is surely the added intensity of the live Bavarian recording. Faust’s tonal focus and instinctive identification with this music inspire the Munich musicians to play with compelling immediacy, and Jakub Hrůša is with her all the way, leading a performance of gripping tautness. Geraint Lewis in his original review remarks how Faust and Hrůša kept him on the edge of his seat as he listened – to a degree not quite matched by Skride with Marin Alsop in Vienna.

Faust’s couplings, too, tell a coherent story of Britten’s relationship with the violin. In contrast to the Double Concerto offered by Skride (demonstrating the precocious young composer’s technical discipline but not yet his maturity and mastery), these chamber works are revealed as finely wrought miniatures, Alexander Melnikov an attentive piano partner, with Faust’s viola-playing brother Boris guesting in two pieces from Britten’s teen years. This is sure to become a modern benchmark for the Concerto, alongside Mark Lubotsky’s classic 1970 recording with the composer conducting. David Threasher