The Queen Elisabeth Competition 2024 gives us the opportunity of diving back into the performances of four prize-winning laureates of the 2009 and 2012 sessions devoted to the violin.

In this exclusive box set we hear Ray Chen (First Prize and Canvas-Klaraprijs 2009), Lorenzo Gatto (Second Prize and Prix Musiq3 2009), Vineta Sareika (laureate 2009) and Andrey Baranov (First Prize 2012).

Ray Chen starts off this box set with the Concerto of Tchaikovsky with which he made such an impression in 2009, and also winning the audience’s Canvas-Klaraprijs. An indelible moment of the Queen Elisabeth Competition; Ray Chen had won over the public, taking with him the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Gilbert Varga at the height of its form. He had previously offered in the final a magnificent Sonata of Franck, full of maturity, and this can be found on disc for the first time.

Next comes the Belgian Lorenzo Gatto, revealed to the international audience in this same competition. In the final he had presented a masterly Concerto of Paganini, yet also a very great Sonata no.3 by George Enescu. His programme is here completed by two extracts of his performances in the semi-final at the Brussels Conservatory: the Sonata for violin solo, op.27 no.6, by Eugène Ysaÿe, and, as an encore, the Havanaise, op.83, of Saint-Saëns.

Vineta Sareika also left her mark on the 2009 competition. She who is today Konzertmeister of the Berlin Philharmonic had offered the highly majestic Concerto of Elgar, a monument of the repertory. Yet the Queen Elisabeth Competition is also the occasion to hear Mozart’s concertos, and here we find Vineta Sareika in the Concerto no.5, K219, of which she gave a splendid rendition in the semi-final, accompanied by the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Michael Hofstetter.

Finally, this box set concludes with Andrey Baranov, First Prize in the 2012 Competition. Imperial in the Concerto no.1 by Shostakovich, he shows that he is also a musician full of refinement and sensitivity in Mozart’s Concerto no.3, K216, and the two pieces of Tchaikovsky in the semi-final in Flagey – the Méditation (Souvenir d’un lieu cher) and the Valse-Scherzo – complete the portrait of this musician who is also a magnificent chamber player.

Four personalities, four sensitivities, four superb violinists to rediscover without delay in some of the great concertos in the repertory and in recordings, for the most part newly released.