Britten: Violin Concerto; Double Concerto; Lachrymae – review

In this country at least, Britten's Violin Concerto seems to be stealthily cementing its place in the concerto repertory; both live performances and recordings seem more and more frequent. This latest version is one of the best so far. Anthony Marwood 's slightly detached, rhythmically incisive playing suits the dry, distantly neoclassical world of the Concerto perfectly, and Ilan Volkov marshals an equally crisp accompaniment. Nevertheless, the performance of the Double Concerto for violin, viola and strings seems even more remarkable. Composed in 1932, when Britten was a student at the Royal College of Music, it's one of the works that was only rehabilitated after his death. But here, with Laurence Power joining Marwood as soloist, it was made to seem a wonderfully distinctive and characterful work. Power's raptly beautiful account of the mysterious Lachrymae, the viola-and-strings "Reflections on a song by Dowland", is a final bonus.