Recorded at the Teatro Massimo, Palermo, 1st May 2002.

Brahms Johannes b Hamburg 1833-1897.

Brahm‘s Violin Concerto received its first performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 1st January 1879. The composer himself conducted, and the soloist was his long-standing friend, Joseph Joachim, one the greatest violinists of his day. While working on the solo part, Brahms had repeatedly sought Joseph’s advice: “Of course, I meant to ask you to correct it, I’ll be content if you say the odd word and perhaps write odd comments in the score; difficult, awkward, impossible, etc.” Thus we read in a letter written in the idyllic setting of Portschach on the Wortersee, where the concerto was composed during the summer of 1878.

Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra Op.77.

• 1st mvt. Allegro non troppo.
• 2nd mvt. Adagio.
• 3rd mvt. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace.

Gil Shaham Violin.

Berliner Philharmoniker / Claudio Abbado

Dvorak Antonin Leopold b Prague, Bohemia 1841-1904.

Dvorak went to America in 1892 in order to spend the next three years running the newly founded National Conservatory of Music. His Ninth Symphony was written a year after his arrival in New York – it is said that only on completion of the work did he spontaneously add the subtitle, From the New World. The first performance with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on the 16th of December, 1893 was a great success, as Dvorak wrote to tell his publisher: “the newspapers say that never has a composer had such triumph”. I was in a box, the hall was full of the cream of New York society, people clapped so much that I had to thank them from my box, like a king!? alla Mascagni in Vienna – (don‘t laugh.)” ———– The work

Symphony in E minor Op.95 No.9 ‘From The New World’.

• 1st mvt. Adagio – Allegro molto.
• 2nd mvt. Largo.
• 3rd mvt. Scherzo; Molto vivace.
• 4th mvt. Allegro con fuco. See video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10u2l8

Berliner Philharmoniker / Claudio Abbado

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Fancesco b Busseto Parma 1813-1901

Overture ‘The Sicilian Vespers’.

Verdi’s first French opera, Les Vepres Siciliennes, received its first performance in 1855 within the framework of the Paris World Exhibition and proved so triumphantly successful that it had to be repeated no fewer than sixty-two times. It describes the uprising of the Sicilians against the French occupying forces in and around Palermo in 1282, an uprising known to history as the Sicilian Vespers. Today the opera is rarely performed in its entirety, BUT The Gramophone Room Radio plays the work at least twice a year including the utterly complete and unique first opera production performed and vividly recorded on BBC CDs. It is the only recording in the world! The overture is magnificent, which Verdi numbered among his favourite pieces on account of its drama and highly effective music. Following his death, it was also one of the works that Toscanini conducted at the composer’s memorial concert at La Scala on the 1st of February 1901.