CD Review

Abstract

This illuminating release is the brainchild of violinist-musicologist Katharina Uhde, who has established herself in recent years as an avid and multifaceted advocate of Joseph Joachim (1831–1907), the Austro-Hungarian violinist and composer. Among her contributions to date are an excellent scholarly monograph on Joachim’s music, an international conference, updates to Joachim’s works list in Grove Music Online, and a scholarly/performance edition of two recently rediscovered compositions for violin and orchestra: Joachim’s Fantasy on Hungarian Themes (1848–50) and his Fantasy on Irish Themes (1852). The two fantasies receive their world-premiere recordings on the present album, whose programme is completed with two shorter Joachim compositions, both of lyrical character: (1) the Romance, op. 2 no. 1 (c. 1849, performed in a c. 1900 arrangement with orchestral accompaniment) and (2) theNotturno, op. 12 (1858). All tracks feature Uhde as violin soloist, performing with the Polish Radio Orchestra Warsaw led by Dennis Friesen-Carper. Since the fantasies were nearly lost to history, the story of their recent rediscoverywarrants recounting here. In 1943, at the height ofWorldWar II, the bulk of the collection of the Berlin Staatliche Akademische Hochschule für Musik was hastily