Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No 1 (1987) is one of his most performed concert works, thanks to the early advocacy of long-time Glass conductor Dennis Russell Davies and soloist Gidon Kramer. The thick textures of the first movement don’t make it easy for the soloist, but French violinist Renaud Capuçon is wonderfully ethereal and pure in the slow movement (taken at a slower than usual pace which, according to Davies, Glass preferred) and in the high, hushed finale. Bernstein’s five-movement Serenade After Plato, for soloists, percussion and orchestra, offers Capuçon ideal opportunity to display his abundant gifts of precision and lyricism.
