Two violin concertos looking forward and back→[More:]The Beethoven is huge and straining to expand the boundaries of classicism, presaging the violin concerto's role as an emblematic genre of romanticism. (What's more romantic than the figure of the lone violinist pitted against the orchestra?) At the other end, Rochberg's 1974 work can't be taken as anything other than fully modern, but it also reaches back and embraces the romantic era. There are few 20th century violin concertos with the sheer mass to balance the Beethoven (even indisputably great ones like the Bartók or Berg don't have the same sense of massive, granitic foundation), but Rochberg's does.