These concertos have a troubled relationship: Schumann’s suppressed work from 1853 was “discovered” against the wishes of his descendants and presented as an example of Aryan purity by Nazi propagandists in 1937 in a monstrous attempt to supplant the hugely popular concerto by the Jewish Mendelssohn. Violinist Carolin Widmann, who also directs the COE, takes an admirably brisk approach to both works, emphasising the cantabile nature of the slow movement of the Mendelssohn without any hint of sentimentality, though tuning occasionally suffers as a result. And tuning is not always secure in the demanding Schumann, with an occasional hollowness of tone that spoils an otherwise elegant and expansive reading.
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