Stern’s well known strengths in Brahms, as evidenced in his studio recordings, are reprised here. He plays with a communicative classicism that embraces romanticised rubati - which elongates but never breaks the line - and which vests the music sometimes with a heartbreaking sense of pathos…The orchestra remains rather bluff…But never mind, it’s Stern’s show and Wöss accompanies admirably.

Isaac Stern may have begun his career as "just" a virtuoso of the violin, but his legacy exists as so much more. A consummate and passionate musician if there ever was one, he was also an ambassador of classical music to the American people, the savior of Carnegie Hall, and a mentor to countless students. This two-disc set entitled The Essential Isaac Stern reveals but the tip of the iceberg of his legacy. The first disc is devoted to single movements of eight of his appearances with orchestra, in particular the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, with whom he had a long-standing, highly successful relationship. The works selected do not entirely reflect the breadth of his repertoire. The same is true of the second disc, which focuses on his many chamber music recordings with some of the greatest musicians of the last century, including Pablo Casals, Leonard Rose, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Yo-Yo Ma to name but a few.

Antonin Dvorák's Piano Quartet No. 2 is one of the greatest chamber works of the 19th century (as are many of Dvorák's chamber compositions). Written in 1889 at the request of his publisher Simrock, it is a big, bold work filled with the Czech master's trademark melodic fecundity, harmonic richness, and rhythmic vitality. The first movement is a soaring, outdoor allegro with an assertively optimistic main theme accented by Czech contours and Dvorák's love of mixing major and minor modes. The Lento movement's wistful main theme is played with a perfect mixture of passion and poise by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The music alternates between passages of drama and delicacy in this, one of Dvorák's finest slow movements in any medium. The Scherzo's stately waltz is contrasted by a lively, up-tempo Czech country dance. The finale is a high-stepping, high-spirited allegro with a strong rhythmic pulse that relaxes for the beautifully lyrical second subject.

This compilation is excellent value. It's interesting how, as the major classical labels mine their back catalogues, once famous artists, not forgotten but perhaps somewhat sidelined by later arrivals, are being reappraised and brought back into favour. Eugene Ormandy is one such. Reissue of many of his recordings is richly deserved and hopefully will introduce a younger generation to his recorded legacy, the product of his legendary 44-year tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Isaac Stern supported by the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Schneider in the A minor, N.Y.P. by Mehta in D minor and N.Y.P. by Bernstein in C minor, dispaly the best of his musicianship to display an admirable compilation of these three emblematic Bach's works. Once again, Stern carves in relief why he was the most kaleidsocopic violinist of the last century. His vast repertoire and the majestic sumptuousness he gives these pages have no paragon.

These are wonderful performances, full of the flair that made Stern famous. I was glad Sony chose this particular version of the Tchaikovsky with Ormandy and the Philadelphians for his "Life in Music" series, rather than Stern's later version with Berstein and the NYPO. This earlier recording captures Stern with more spontaneity and displays his virtuosity to greater effect. The faster passages of the Tchaikovsky are handled with ease, even at speeds faster than normally heard.

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) inhabits a "sound world" uniquely his own: moody, harmonically complex, sometimes neurotically so, melodically elusive. Less readily accessible than either of his French contemporaries, Debussy and Ravel, Faure's chamber music, nonetheless, is infinitely rewarding and certainly should be more widely recorded and available.
This remarkably rich offering of Faure's only two piano quartets (in C Minor, Op. 15 and G Minor, Op. 45) will, no doubt, go a long way in re-energizing interest in this coupling of the composer's most "popular" ensemble works.

Early in 1935, the American violinist Louis Krasner suggested to Berg that he write a violin concerto, but Berg, involved with the orchestration of his opera Lulu, was not then interested in a new project. However, the death from poliomelytis of his young friend Manon Gropius, daughter of Mahler’s widow, that spring so saddened him that he decided to compose a concerto as a memorial to her. Te score was finished on August 11, 1935 – record time for the slow-working, meticulous Berg. Dedicated ‘to the memory of an angel’ the Violin Concerto was to be his last completed work, for on December 24 he died of septicemia of the age of fifty. Krasner gave the world premiere on April 19, 1936, in Barcelona, under Hermann Scherchen.