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Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann

Both Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D major, with its energetic finale in the ‘Hungarian’ style, and Clara Schumann’s Romances, op. 22, were dedicated to the prominent Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, a long-time close friend of Brahms’s whose advice the composer actively solicited (but did not always heed) as he crafted the concerto. Lisa Batiashvili plays here on Joachim’s own 1715 Stradivarius, on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. Although this album thus pays tribute to Joachim in some respects, it is interesting that the usual performance choice of Joachim’s cadenza for the concerto is passed over here in favour of the more rarely heard Busoni cadenza (BV B 5), composed in 1913. This cadenza draws in turn on both of the main themes of the concerto’s initial movement and is distinctive in its incorporation of timpani rolls and in the early re-entry of the ensemble strings. (Brahms did not write a cadenza for the work himself. Cadenzas have been supplied by a number of musicians over the years; sixteen of these cadenzas, including ones by Kreisler and Heifetz among others, may be heard on Ruggiero Ricci’s recording of the concerto.)1 Even apart from the considerable merits of the interpretations on the present disc, a number of remarkable features help to distinguish this recording and emphasize the connections of both works to Joachim. This disc is thus a unique and valuable addition to the already sizable catalogue of important recordings of the concerto. The published version of the work, heard on this recording, was the result of a number of revisions. Brahms began composing the D major Concerto at the resort of Pörtschach in the summer of 1878, a year after completing his second symphony there. (The first movement of the symphony is often compared to that of the concerto, with which it shares its main key and a certain idyllic character.) The concerto was originally conceived as a fourmovement work, in the manner of a symphony, but Brahms soon replaced the slow movement and scherzo with the current Adagio. After collaborating with Joachim for several months over changes (particularly ones intended to