The twentieth edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition devoted to the violin ended on Saturday 1 June 2024 with a rapturous public and the enthusiasm created every year by this major event in Belgian and international musical life.

The 4-CD box set of the finest moments of this competition highlights the great diversity of the violin repertory, be it with orchestra or in chamber music.

We have here three concertos for violin performed by the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Antony Hermus: the First Prize winner of course, Dmytro Udovychenko in the Shostakovich Concerto and Joshua Brown (Second Prize) in the Brahms, both performed on the final evening of the competition. The Tchaikovsky Concerto performed by Julian Rhee (Fifth Prize) and the compulsory work in the final by Thierry Escaich interpreted by Dmytro Udovychenko complete the performances with the BNO.

The concertos of Mozart performed by the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Vahan Mardirossian open the second disc: the First Concerto, K207, by Minami Yoshida (Sixth Prize) followed by the Fourth Concerto as interpreted by Kevin Zhu (Fourth Prize).

Considerable space is allocated to chamber music on these discs: from the Sonata no.7 in C minor by Beethoven with Joshua Brown to the compulsory work in the semi-final by Charlotte Bray, not forgetting the Fantasia by Schubert with Elli Choi (Third Prize), this box set enables one to discover all twelve laureates of this session as they thrilled us during these 3 weeks of the competition.

Mozart or Schnittke, Beethoven or Bartók, Saint-Saëns or Lutosławski, the repertory for the king of instruments of the Queen Elisabeth Competition is honoured in all its aspects, and performed by the brilliant soloists who represent a new generation of violinists.