Bach Double Violin Concerto - modern recording

In 2024 WRE founder David Milsom and his student Maria Nikolaeva recorded J.S. Bach's iconic Double Violin Concerto in a historic reconstruction, using 19th-century appropriate gut strings, and with a 19th-century Broadwood boudoir grand piano substituting for the orchestra, as was often the case with early studio recordings.

Another outstanding feature of this performance is the inclusion of a cadenza written by Joseph Hellmesberger Sr (1828-93), which until very recently was virtually unknown to modern violinists. The existence of the cadenza came to light for the rather niche audience of historically-informed performance enthusiasts in 1992, via a CD re-release by specialist ancient recordings restorer, Biddulph. A two-disc digitally remastered set, 'Arnold Rosé and the Rosé String Quartet' (LAB 056-57), includes a 1928 complete recording of the concerto, including Hellmesberger's cadenza, performed by Arnold Rosé (1863-1946), who was concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the time, and his daughter Alma (1906-44). A copy of Hellmesberger's six cadenzas was added to the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) in 2017, but the Bach cadenza remained obscure in modern performance terms until very recently.

This recording project links to our groundbreaking acoustic recording of the 3rd movement with cadenza, made in August 2024.