Roe is best known for her duo work with Greg Anderson, and their recent CD of Bach transcriptions is worth searching out. Now, with the London Symphony Orchestra under Emil Tabakov, she has the keyboard to herself.
Britten's 1938 Piano Concerto, performed in its 1945 revision, has been sadly underestimated.
Glitter and jest abound, especially in the dazzle of its opening toccata; but a marching finale, with a theme lusty enough for Shostakovich to envy, perhaps hints at Nazi jackboots marching through Europe.
Roe is unperturbed by Britten's virtuoso demands and, alongside a sumptuous LSO, she relishes the guarded romanticism that bursts out of the central impromptu.
The two composers are eloquently connected in words as well as music.
Britten is referred to as an outsider in Roe's sensitively pitched booklet essay and Barber, she notes wryly, also "followed the beat of his own drummer".
Barber's 1962 Piano Concerto shows the composer at his peak, with a Pulitzer Prize to prove it.
You'll be won over by Roe's effortless brilliance here, from its forceful cadenza launch through to some sparring in the closing allegro molto.
There are also rewards, especially in this finale, in the many passages calling for the more delicate dialogues of chamber music.
Roe includes two solos, a frequently stormy Night Piece that Britten wrote for the first Leeds Piano Competition in 1963, and Barber's 1959 Nocturne, an elegantly twisting tribute to John Field, the composer who invented this form.
These take the disc to a generous 74 minutes, as well as giving us a more intimate glimpse of the two composers.
