Work: Violin Concerto no. 2, Sz 112

First Associate Concertmaster Juliette Kang dispatches the perilous demands of Bartók's Second Violin Concerto with practiced ease, on a program that also featured a complete Firebird.

Michael Barenboim gives a powerful performance of Bartók's Violin Concerto no. 2; Domingo Hindoyan and the RLPO give equally strong accounts of music by Kodály and Dvořák.

Without bite and grit, Bartók's music loses some of its uniqueness. Kochanovsky and his Hannover players still have some way to go, but Valeriy Sokolov delivers an impassioned Second Violin Concerto.