This release features the complete studio recordings Joseph Szigeti made for the American Forces Radio Service during the Second World War. These are made up of seven short encore pieces, including such favourites as Brahms’s Hungarian Dance no.5, Tchaikovsky’s Valse sentimentale and Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance in G minor. Also featured are Szigeti’s post-War EMI recordings of two tone poems for violin and orchestra: Berlioz’s Rêverie and Caprice and Bartók’s Portrait no.1.

This CD also includes three live performances from the 1940s. Corelli’s La Folia Variations features an orchestral accompaniment led by Alfred Wallenstein, and Beethoven’s Romance no.1 in G is conducted by a young Leonard Bernstein, made the year after his sensational début with the New York Philharmonic. Most significant is the US radio premiere of Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto from 30 December 1945. Szigeti and Dimitri Mitropoulos were two of the Concerto’s ardent champions, and offer a riveting account of this romantic 12-tone work from the Second Viennese School.