In a review of a new disc of Penderecki's 2008 horn concerto, David Hurwitz asserts:
"Certainly there is no finer 20th-century concerto for the
instrument: this is a masterpiece that you will return to often, and
the performance here is entirely worthy of the work."
Hurwitz's site and reviews are often frustrating, and not just because I often disagree with both his and his reviewers' opinions on the merits of various recordings but also on their aesthetic viewpoints.
The problem is, Penderecki's horn concerto is a 21st-century work. And even if it weren't, does Mr. Hurwitz really think the Penderecki (which, after admittedly only hearing a live broadcast and not this particular recording, I find dreadfully boring and neither idiomatic nor gratifyingly unidiomatic for the instrument, despite Radovan Vlatkovic's solid technique) is "finer" than Strauss' second concerto, not to mention essays in the genre by Hindemith and Knussen?