Ignore the ludicrous, sultry picture of Elizabeth Joy Roe on the back of this CD’s cover. Her playing of Britten’s powerful 1938 concerto has an allure that is anything but sexy; it’s urgent and occasionally darkly sinister, a perfect reflection of the nervous year in which it was written. And Roe is more than a match for the demands of Samuel Barber’s exuberantly difficult 1962 concerto. Shame on Decca for making such a talented artist lie on top of a piano like a model draped over a car bonnet.
