The German composer Max Bruch is today best remembered for his Violin Concerto in G minor, but in his own day a wide number of works enjoyed popularity. The last of his three symphonies is a large-scale work intended as a romantic evocation of the composer’s native Rhineland. Bruch himself wrote ‘This symphony is a work of life, of joy … and it should have the title On the Rhine – Am Rhein’. The Suite on Russian Themes, Op. 79b, was written nearly 20 years later and, along with the Scottish Fantasia and Swedish Dances, attests to Bruch’s interest in the folk music traditions of Europe.