Schumann & Bruch: Cello Concerto & Works for Cello and Orche
SWR
CD
$20.99Nov 13, 2026
Sebastian Klinger and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under Marzena Diakun bring together a compelling selection of Romantic works for cello and orchestra: Schumann's deeply expressive Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, alongside Max Bruch's lyrical pieces Kol Nidrei, Canzone, and Ave Maria. Schumann's concerto, born from a moment of creative exhilaration, unfolds with poetic intensity as it's movements flow seamlessly into one another, illuminated by the cello's warm, human voice. Bruch's works, by contrast, shine with heartfelt melody and emotional immediacy - music that speaks directly to the soul. Sebastian Klinger, one of the outstanding cellists of his generation, combines technical brilliance with a uniquely rich tonal palette. Together with the DRP, he brings Romanticism to life in it's most compelling form: intimate, passionate, timeless.
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony emerged at a biographical crossroads, between his definitive establishment as a leading composer and the onset of increasing isolation caused by his advancing deafness. At the time of it's premiere, it was the second-longest symphony ever written, surpassed in scale only by Beethoven's own Third, the 'Eroica.' Since it's first performance in 1813, there has never been a period in which it was not counted to the composer's most popular works. Since 2025, Francois-Xavier Roth-who had already served as Chief Conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg from 2011 to 2016-has been Chief Conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra. A musical visionary and remarkably versatile conductor, Roth has recorded and released all of Richard Strauss's tone poems, the ballets of Igor Stravinsky, the orchestral works of Ravel and Berlioz, as well as the complete symphonies of Bruckner, Mahler, and Schumann. With the present recording, Roth and the SWR Symphony Orchestra set a highly musical opening marker for a collaboration that promises to continue with great momentum in the years ahead.
Three works, three worlds-yet united by a shared pursuit: the search for that moment when music transcends itself. César Franck's youthful Trio in F-sharp minor bursts with creative energy, filled with melodies of immediate emotional force and a sense of freedom that opens the space wide. Edvard Grieg's single movement for piano trio unfolds as a circle of light and motion: tentative, glowing, shimmering-a serious game that constantly reinvents itself. And the enigmatic A-major Trio, long attributed to Brahms, speaks in a warm, expansive voice that feels familiar yet stems from an unknown hand. Together, these works form a panorama of chamber music: bold and youthful, poetic and searching, deeply rooted and full of open questions. For the E.T.A. Trio, they become a reflection of the ensemble's own musical identity: three musicians who meet in alertness, curiosity, and a shared devotion to sound-always seeking the moment when their voices merge into a living, breathing dialogue. "SWR Kultur New Talent" is a support program dedicated to outstanding young classical musicians. Over the course of three years, exceptional artistic personalities are promoted through concerts, studio productions, and extensive media presence. Following Janina Ruh, Robert Neumann, and Lionel Martin, the E.T.A. Trio now presents it's debut CD within this series.
This is the first release ever of all the Bruckner symphony recordings that Hans Rosbaud made for SDR (now SWR). Hans Rosbaud is remembered chiefly as a committed performer of contemporary music. This resulted from his regular appearances in Donaueschingen, where he conducted either the world or regional premieres of works by Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and many others. Crucially important was his conducting of the first concert performance of Arnold Schönberg’s opera Moses and Aaron in Hamburg on 12 March 1954. However he devoted equal attention to the works of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. which is all the more reason to take a closer look also at his other recordings, in this case, at his Bruckner interpretations. Rosbaud produced performances of all Bruckner's symphonies for the radio broadcasting company Sudwestfunk (SDR), apart from the First, which he never conducted.
This recording of the 1993 Schwetzingen Festival has already achieved cult status. The then, 78 year old Sviatoslav Richter plays for the first and last time in public Gershwin's jazzy Concerto in F-sharp. Gershwin's works had always been suspect under the Soviet regime. All the more surprising was Richter's decision to perform this work in his maturity. Needless to say, Richter never made a formal, studio recording of this work. It is not only a unique recording, but also a document of Richter's expansive interest in all musical repertoires than came under his purview. The Fifth Piano Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns was eclipsed by the same composer's more popular "Second" Concerto throughout Richter's performing career. With the exception of one album, he never again recorded this work and there is no record that he ever again performed it internationally. With this concert, there can be no dispute that we are dealing with a real rarity.
Les Vendredis is a collection of string quartets by several Russian composers, who played a key role at the famous Friday evening concerts organized by the music publisher Belaieff at the end of the 19th century. Alexander Glazunov, Anatoli Liadov and Rimsky-Korsakov are among the illustrious names that formed that musical society. Belaieff, son and heir of a wealthy wood trader, was a music enthusiast and an excellent violist. Thus, it was only natural that he hosted string quartet concerts in his house and commissioned composers for new string quartet works. Some of these works were published in 1899 by Belaieff’s own publishing house, which he had founded in the 1880s. The works of this collection continue to fascinate to this day, but are, unfortunately, only rarely performed. The Szymanowski Quartet, who are known for their exciting and cleverly compiled concert programmes, perform this repertoire with both pleasure and passion. Their technical perfection suits the musical challenges and their soulful performance highlights the lyrical emotions of these Russian musical treasures.
"For this May 1973 concert, the two veteran instrumentalists, Josef Suk and János Starker, chose the then only 27-year-old Rudolf Buchbinder as their pianist to complete the trio. The performances are full of sensitive – and when necessary – forceful music-making.
Three famed soloists playing masterworks from the piano trio repertoire
A further highlight from the Schwetzingen SWR Festival concert series
Musically outstanding presentations"
Paul Hindemith was an all-round musician, virtuoso violist, composer and educator. He mastered all the instruments of the orchestra to a more or less professional level of proficiency, all of which was more than adequate preparation for conducting too. He was strongly influenced in his conducting by Wilhelm Furtwängler, placing the highest value on the living tradition of interpretation. This release features his 1958 recording of Bruckner’s radiant Seventh Symphony; the mature master locating Bruckner’s achievements as a high point on the continuum between Bach and his own work.
Beaux Arts Trio: Concert 1960 - Maurice Ravel, Johannes Brahms
SWR
CD
$13.99Apr 24, 2012
When the Beaux Arts Trio played this concert in 1960, the soon to be world famous ensemble was only 5 years old. During the next 48 years and several changes in membership, the Beaux Arts would become recognized as one of the greatest classical music ensembles in the world, under the constant leadership of Menahem Pressler. In September 2008, the Beaux Arts Trio played it's final concert - but here you can admire their beginnings.
Géza Anda was among the small group of 20th Century pianists whose playing and artistic point of view became a seminal force for future generations. Anda's live performances presented a balance of spontaneity and reflection achieved through his complete devotion to realizing the composer's creative vision. Anda's interpretation of Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand and Orchestra is a fascinating addition to his discography, providing new insights to this haunting score and Anda's extraordinary interpretive abilities.
Henryk Szeryng Plays Nardini, Vieuxemps, Ravel, Schumann
SWR
CD
$13.99Mar 10, 2015
Henryk Szeryng, once regarded a supreme master, has faded from memory, his fame not comparable to that of Heifetz or Oistrakh, Milstein or Menuhin, although often mentioned along with them. His performances set standards; the major record companies vied for his favor. In 1955 Szeryng played with the Sinfonie Orchester des Südwestfunks under Hans Rosbaud. These live recordings of a Romantically-edited Nardini Concerto in E minor and Vieuxtemps' popular fourth concerto were followed in March 1957 by studio recordings of Ravel's "Tzigane" and Schumann's neglected Violin Concerto.
BRAHMS Violin Concerto. Serenade No. 2 in A • Ernest Bour, cond; Zino Francescatti (vn); SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg • HÄNSSLER 94.219 (72:07)
Readers should be aware that when multiple reviews of the same release appear back-to-back in the magazine, copies of those recordings are sent to the contributing reviewers blind. This means we don’t know when or if a colleague might be submitting an opposing opinion and, if so, who that colleague might be. In this case, however, I think I can make a pretty good guess that this release also went out to Robert Maxham and, based on our usually differing views about violinists and violin playing, plus what he’s said about Zino Francescatti in past reviews, I can almost guarantee the reader two quite different takes on this performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto.
First, let me say that of Francescatti’s recordings I’ve heard—admittedly not that many—there’s only one I really liked and would have recommended, had I been reviewing for Fanfare back then. That was his 1959 recording of the Brahms “Double” Concerto with cellist Pierre Fournier and Bruno Walter leading the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Among my disliked Francescatti recordings was his Paganini First Concerto with Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic, coupled with a Saint-Saëns Third Concerto with Ormandy leading the Philadelphia Orchestra.
It’s hard to say exactly what turned me off Francescatti’s playing early on. It was at a time in the late 1950s, shortly after I first started learning the violin and listening to recordings that my ideas of what constituted ideal violin playing were being formed. Francescatti was touted as a virtuoso extraordinaire, a technician of such redoubtable accomplishment that he was compared favorably to Heifetz. Yet what I heard when I listened to Francescatti was a rich, silken tone that often turned hard and abrasive in technically challenging passages. More disturbing, though I couldn’t have verbalized it at the time, was what I now regard as a laissez-faire approach to rapid passagework—a sort of “close enough for government work” attitude, in which harmonics were missed, runs were uneven, and notes were often sloughed off. To my ear, Francescatti lacked the self-discipline of Heifetz and Milstein and the discretion of Oistrakh in knowing when to resist risk-taking that exceeded one’s limits.
Second, all of this may be of little relevance because—though Francescatti’s discography is probably more extensive than current listings would suggest—Columbia Records, the label for which Francescatti mainly recorded, decided that Isaac Stern was the more saleable violinist, thus curtailing Francescatti’s exposure on record, at least to American audiences.
Counting this current Hänssler release, to the best of my knowledge, there are five Francescatti versions of the Brahms concerto on record, all of them commercially available on CD. Compared to Oistrakh’s 15 recordings, documented in a 28:4 review, five seems like a modest number, but as suggested above, Francescatti may have been captured live in more performances of the work than are in general circulation; I don’t know. Of the five, however, this studio recording made in 1974 is the latest. The other four versions are Ormandy/Philadelphia, 1956 (mono); Mitropolous/Vienna Philharmonic, 1958 (mono); Bernstein/New York Philharmonic, 1961; and Leinsdorf/ORTF National Orchestra, 1969.
Francescatti was 72 when he joined Ernest Bour and SWR Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg for this venture. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that his previously full-bodied tone has thinned a bit, and there seems to be a very slight but detectable right-hand tremor on sustained notes; listen carefully, for example, to the high A at bar 140. Also, some of the minor technical issues noted in his earlier recordings have now become real liabilities. The passage in chords beginning in bar 164, for instance, is choppily articulated and sounds a bit desperate in its grasping for the notes. Nonetheless, the violinist has lost none of his fearlessness in the face of danger. For a 28:4 review of Arabella Steinbacher’s Brahms, I plugged 24 versions of the concerto into a spreadsheet and then sorted them by timings. If I were to add this Francescatti performance to the mix, it wouldn’t be the fastest—at 36:03, that distinction still goes to Milstein with Fistoulari and the Philharmonia in a 1961 recording for EMI—but at 38:15, it ties Grumiaux’s 1958 recording with van Beinum and the Concertgebouw for seventh place on the list, still 15 seconds faster than Heifetz’s classic 1955 Reiner/Chicago account.
I hope I haven’t made this Francescatti Brahms sound worse than it is. If you’re willing to overlook a slip here, a mishap there, and a rough patch every now and then—all technical flaws which I believe were always present in Francescatti’s playing on earlier recordings—there are some nice things to be said of the performance as well. Conductor Bour and Francescatti share a rapturous vision of the score, bringing to it many moments of an almost ecstatic magnanimity. The lofty, angelic purity of Francescatti’s tone in the first movement’s post-cadenza measures (he plays the familiar Joachim cadenza, by the way) is absolutely transfixing.
So, even though I’ve expressed personal reservations about Francescatti’s playing in general, I acknowledge that he’s justly recognized as one of the 20th century’s great violinists, and I recommend this CD not just to Francescatti fans. Those who cherish Brahms’s Violin Concerto will also want this memento of what is probably the violinist’s last recorded performance of the work.
Brahms’s rustic, amiable A-Major Serenade is a generous addition to this already desirable disc, and considering it’s almost as long as the concerto, it would be ungenerous to call it filler. Ernest Bour is not a conductor I’ve had occasion to review before, but based on his contribution in the concerto and his reading of the serenade, I’d have to say that he has a real flair for Brahms. Unfortunately, Bour died in 2001, so we’re not likely to hear any more from him. But this is a glowing performance by a conductor and an orchestra on top form.
Sonically, both the concerto and the serenade are quite good, but the serenade, recorded four years later in 1978, is marginally better. It’s more open and has more air around it, which lends the serenade an appropriate outdoorsy atmosphere. Strongly recommended.
Introducing François-Xavier Roth - the charismatic new Principal Conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg in his debut recording as part of the SWRmusic/haenssler CLASSIC collaboration that has produced so many critically acclaimed recordings. This beautiful program features two Late Romantic paeans to nature: Mahler's popular First Symphony and Anton Webern's early, lushly scored tone poem, "Im Sommerwind".
