Joseph Daniel Unwin

Violinist and composer Joseph Joachim was a central figure of Romanticism, famous as a personal friend of Johannes Brahms and as an arbiter of musical taste who was professionally associated with many of the 19th century's greatest musicians. Daniel Hope's The Romantic Violinist: A Celebration of Joseph Joachim paints an appealing portrait through selections of Joachim's own music, as well as short pieces by Brahms, Clara Schumann, Antonin Dvorák, Franz Schubert, and the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Max Bruch.

Petibon has established herself as one of the most interesting and versatile sopranos of our day and has been widely acclaimed for her outstanding acting abilities that make her merge completely with whatever role she sings and represents on stage.

Two rival yet similar works, an illustration of a "Quarrel of the Te Deums", a true war of mottled violin scores, a frivolous echo of Louis XV's final victories. It is also the rediscovery of two of the most talented amongst Rameau's contemporaries, François Colin de Blamont and Esprit Joseph Antoine Blanchard. Daniel Cuiller appropriates this music with the voracity which led him to revive a previous Te Deum, on that occasion by Henri Madin, and which was covered with praise. Add to this the brilliant singers of the Marguerite Louise Choir which is directed by Gaétan Jarry and the virtuoso musicians of Stradivaria, Daniel replied with enthusiasm to this "commission" for the Royal Chapel of Versailles.

As always, the challenge presented by this most traditional of concerts is to balance coherent and thoughtful exploration of the less familiar items in the catalog of 19th-century Straussian, Austrian, and central-European popular music with fresh readings of the chestnuts, including, of course, the obligatory last two encores on the program. In this case, Barenboim guides his audience, appropriately, through a travelogue of the Mediterranean and the East. Remarkably, 2009 marked the first time that Daniel Barenboim had ever been invited to conduct this event, perhaps a reminder of how seldom his commitments to Berlin and Chicago have allowed him to appear in this most southern of Austrian cities.