Max Bruch is nowadays best remembered for his first Violin Concerto, written in 1868, with its rhapsodic first movement, deeply felt slow movement and lively finale. It is interesting to compare this work with the much weightier Violin Concerto by Brahms, written ten years later and of considerably greater length and complexity. Our chosen recording uses the cadenza written for the concerto by Fritz Kreisler. Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Bruch and Brahms make up between them the standard violin concerto repertoire of the 19th century, after Beethoven.
Recommended recording
Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 & Brahms: Violin Concerto, with the violinist Takako Nishizaki and the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra under Stephen Gunzenhauser.
Naxos 8.550195
