Britten / Walton: Violin & Viola Concertos

"The result is a superlative performance of a concerto that hasn't really been taken up by top-flight violinists (Heifetz, Menuhin and Perlman, for example, no strangers to 'English' concertos, studiously avoided it). It is certainly a work of contrasts: technically, it is ruthlessly difficult, idiomatically it is much less 'English' than virtually any violin concerto by a British composer that precedes it. Moments of lyricism are accompanied by moments of barrenness, but what perhaps makes it so difficult to bring off is its stark intellectualism and the conflict between major and minor which gives the work an unsettled persona of equivocation." MusicWeb