What a clever piece of programming this is! The Bruch and the Barber might seem as if they come from different worlds – the late Romantic European versus the anguished American from the Second World War – but in fact they explore similar territory and they contain some of the most heart-rending music ever written for violin and orchestra…
Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima are becoming experts at exploring the byways of the Italian baroque and this disc is a delightful example of their series…
“How great that you heard the Brahms at the FTH last week,” Sir Adrian Boult wrote to me on 12 December 1973. “It was such a great experience for all of us – I think he is the greatest of all pianists.” We were talking Claudio Arrau and the performance of Brahms Boult had conducted at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester…