Bruch: Romance for viola & orchestra/piano, Op. 85

All the works in this stunning recording were composed in the same year, 1911. The CD includes Bruch’s Concerto for clarinet, viola and orchestra (Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège) as well as Eight pieces for clarinet, viola and piano.

It has often been said that music is a universal language; it is not, though, universally understood as a mother tongue, it is only universally spoken thus. So one must always attempt to hear it like something new, not quite familiar with a tourist's perception. Let's travel, then, and imagine some interesting encounters, where a German Brahms would understand a French Saint-Saëns as much as a Russian Glière, where a Belgian Jongen would make himself understood to an Austrian Kreisler as much as to a British Elgar, and where a trombonist and a pianist would understand themselves mutually. The listener, then, will have the creative opportunity to impart these familiar and less familiar sounds with significance while surrendering to the sheer pleasure of their beauty.