Violinist Ray Chen’s winning performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, at the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition became a moment passing in time. Now, another performance of that repertoire staple has been laid down and preserved for posterity. Chen’s latest CD, released this month on the Sony Classical label, features the Tchaikovsky concerto as well as Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, both recorded last spring with the Swedish Radio Orchestra under conductor Daniel Harding.

Prior to the Queen Elisabeth, Chen won the 2008 Menuhin Competition, in part with a performance of the Mendelssohn. Precisely because these concertos helped him win two major events, Chen says that both the Mendelssohn and the Tchaikovsky “are close to my heart.”

Acknowledging that others have recorded both works countless times over the decades, the 22-year-old violinist insists that his recording is fresh. “I wouldn’t record something unless I felt I had something new to offer,” he says, during a phone interview. “I felt like I was ready to put them down. I really wanted to, and I felt it’s something I want to share with the public and my audience.”

For Chen, who was born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, the new CD marks another milestone in a career that has rapidly picked up steam in recent years. The recording sessions were sandwiched between concerto and recital performances in Europe, the United States, and Asia. Getting into shape for the recordings wasn’t hard, as Chen has toured extensively with both concertos since the competitions, even performing the Tchaikovsky just the week prior to the recording. “When you’re performing a lot, things are in good shape,” he says. “Your fingers seem to do fine.” He brushed up on the history of the concertos, reminding himself of the Tchaikovsky concerto’s dance influences and, because he happened to be in Leipzig, Germany, visiting Mendelssohn’s house. “It just reinforced the feelings I have for these works,” he says.

Making the concerto disc was a different experience from recording his critically acclaimed 2011 debut CD Virtuoso, a studio recording of personal favorites with piano collaborator Noreen Polera. It included Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” sonata, the Bach D minor Chaconne, and Franck’s A major sonata. This time around, Chen rehearsed and recorded the concertos over six days in Stockholm—Chen felt a combination of excitement and pressure.

He wrote on his blog at the time: “It didn’t help that this time I was not going to have the luxury of being in a studio and having all the time in the world. No, this time there was going to be 80 musicians all counting on me to get it right every time. Oh—and did I mention that it was going to be a live recording? ‘Stressed’ doesn’t really cut it for the way I was feeling during the week. . . . Being picky is a curse when it comes to recording.”

Ultimately, though, Chen ended up satisfied. “We got the sound glowing,” he says. “I felt good about each performance.”

How does his playing on the recording compare with his competition performances? Chen points out that he has gained a few more years of experience since then. “There are subtle differences,” he says. “Things have changed—my sound, the interpretations. It’s a more mature point of view, an older point of view.

“In the Mendelssohn, for instance, I’ve made it more exciting in general. I take more time in places I need to. When you’re younger, you’re afraid of silences within the phrases. The rests, those are the best parts now. Timing is everything. It’s all about the timing.”

Not surprisingly, Chen’s history with both concertos extends back to his childhood. Chen was nine years old, with five years of study under his belt, when he first played the Mendelssohn. “That was my first big concerto,” he recalls. “I bet it sounded like crap at the time, but it sounded like I was enjoying myself. It’s entertaining to see a nine year old with the Mendelssohn.”

Chen then put the concerto away until he was 18 and preparing for the Menuhin Competition under Aaron Rosand, his teacher at the Curtis Institute.

Mendelssohn wrote the concerto, now recognized as the first Romantic concerto in the repertoire, with the input of violinist Ferdinand David, a friend and concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Many features of the concerto at the time were deemed unusual, including the prompt violin entry introducing the first movement’s theme, the absence of pauses between movements, and a fully written-out cadenza. Roundly described as “poised” and “delicate,” it was well received at its 1845 premiere in Leipzig.

The Tchaikovsky was the first concerto Chen performed with an orchestra, and he won a national youth competition in Australia at age 13 with the work. Tchaikovsky composed the concerto in 1878 over a few months and dedicated it to the violinist Leopold Auer, who promptly declared the work’s pyrotechnics and showy phrases unsuited to the violin. The concerto sat around for three years until fellow Russian violinist Adolph Brodsky premiered it in 1881 to dismal reviews. Later, Auer warmed to the concerto, playing it and teaching it as well. Today it’s on every violinist’s to-do list.

On his latest disc, Chen plays the 1721 “Macmillan” Stradivari, on loan to him since his winning 2008 audition for Young Concert Artists, the New York nonprofit promoting emerging musicians. On the CD, listeners can expect a performance style that others describe simply as “big.” Bowdoin International Music Festival director Lewis Kaplan, who has engaged Chen twice at the summer event, says that “his playing is very virtuosic, with great sound, big technique, big sound, big strokes.”

Chen, Kaplan adds, “has the personality of a rock star.”

Rosand, with whom Chen studied for five years at Curtis, says that his former student’s playing reflects “a fire in the belly.”

Still, despite the praise lavished on him by fellow musicians and reviewers, Chen remains modest about his successes. “I want to keep going and keep improving,” he says.

The violinist says he wants to build his concert repertoire, adding more concertos and works from living composers. “Every day I try to improve,” he says. “I accept that I’m a young violinist, and I have a long way to go.”