María Dueñas plays Korngold's Violin Concerto

The BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo, plays Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Betsy Jolas's Latest. Soloist María Dueñas joins for Korngold's Violin Concerto.

Recorded at the Barbican on 22nd May 2026. Presented by Martin Handley.

Betsy Jolas: Latest
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Violin Concerto in D major

Interval

Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

María Dueñas (violin)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo (conductor)

When Europe’s greatest composers fled from war and tyranny, they rebuilt their careers in the USA – singing of hope, loss and defiance from the shores of a new world. Korngold’s Violin Concerto finds the spirit of Vienna in the Hollywood Hills, while Bartók created an epic display of courage, sorrow and life-affirming brilliance in his dazzling Concerto for Orchestra.

Korngold’s concerto, in particular, is a perfect showcase for the award-winning Spanish violinist María Dueñas. “With her gorgeous sound – dense, warm and brilliant – and her immaculate technique, Dueñas is already at the top” wrote Bachtrack, and it’s hard to imagine a lovelier upbeat to Bartók’s roof-raising orchestral spectacular: a personal favourite of BBC Symphony Orchestra chief conductor Sakari Oramo.