The two violin concertos coupled on this recording display as many affinities as they do divergences. Both stem from creators in conflict with their native Russia – one choosing to return there, the other settling permanently in exile; both belong to the aesthetic of the ‘return to order’ observed from 1920 onwards and characterised by the reappropriation of models from the past. If Prokofiev preserves the traditional bases of the concerto, he combines them with a search for a new lyricism. As for Stravinsky, he reworks tried and trusted models while offering a deliberately neutral, distanced expressivity.