This exceptional recording was made using three original instruments that belonged to Paganini himself: the powerful 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin; a six-string guitar by Ory, Paris, dated 1797; and a magnificent 1736 Stradivari cello, property of the Nippon Music Foundation and entrusted to Clemens Hagen, cellist of the Hagen Quartet. The three instruments are played together for the first time on this release. It was Giulio Plotino who conceived this project and took upon himself the difficult task of reuniting the three instruments. Indeed, this unique recording would not have been possible without him.

Adolf von Henselt’s music is not well known today outside piano circles. His Piano Trio Op. 24, dedicated to Franz Liszt, is one of the few chamber works he created, and it bears more signs of the performer’s career he left behind than of the influential pedagogue he became. If Henselt’s writing is a little over-the-top in places, the playing on this recording is even more so. The ensemble is occasionally on the heavy side, and MDG’s sound is so direct and open that the performers’ stresses are exaggerated even further. This is evident, for instance, in the closing bars of the first movement exposition and in much of the following development section.

Gidon Kremer and Harnoncourt imbue the Violin Concerto with intellectual strength and Romantic warmth.