Dynamic music in exile

Benjamin Britten & Paul Hindemith: Violin Concertos

It's looking like Paul Hindemith's reputation might have turned a corner; there have been some really first-class releases of his music in the last few years.  I've recently reviewed the Amar Quartet's excellent Complete String Quartets on Naxos and another fine album of chamber music with clarinet from Brilliant Classics. Slightly older, but quite spectacular, was an outstanding all-Hindemith disc from Midori and Christoph Eschenbach. Now we have a fine new recording of the Hindemith Violin Concerto from Arabella Steinbacher and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski. It's coupled with an equally beautifully-played Britten Concerto.

These two works were both written in 1939, when each of these composers was in exile from his native land; Britten in America and Hindemith in Switzerland, and later America as well. "Only the misfortune of exile," says Stefan Zweig, "can provide the in-depth understanding and the overview into the realities of the world." There's some nostalgic sadness in each work, as there was in Zweig's own work about exile, The World of Yesterday, written in Brazil in the early 1940s. But, typically of both composers, this music is very much forward-looking, dynamic and really rather optimistic. Steinbacher plays with verve and great virtuosity, while Jurowski and his musicians provide the requisite big sound for these two 19th century-style concertos, the dramatic and lively Britten, and the lyrical, stirring Hindemith. Very highly recommended.


This album will be released on October 20, 2017.