His Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor and the Scottish Fantasy aside, does Max Bruch deserve to be so sorely neglected? It may not be a question to lose sleep over, but let these five elite chamber musicians convert you to the cause … you won’t find better advocates.
The early Piano Trio is attractive if inconsequential, but the Second String Quartet soars with high-powered lyricism, spilling into the soundworlds of Mendelssohn and Brahms. The Four Pieces for cello and piano make inventive use of folk material—Finnish, Scottish, Swedish—while the melancholy Romance for viola is a plum, slightly better known in its orchestral version, but here gloriously played by Power and Crawford-Phillips.