Symphoniker Hamburg / Guy Braunstein

A famous work can sometimes be both a curse and a blessing. Referring to his Violin Concerto No. 1, Max Bruch once said in frustration: »Go away and play the other concertos, which are just as good if not better!« Among those other works he surely included his »Scottish Fantasy«, which he wrote in 1879/80: Bruch was following the raging trend for all things Scottish without ever having been to the country! However, he had fortuitously found a collection of valuable folk songs that »gradually and increasingly pulled [him] into their magic circle« and that inspired him to compose the wonderful violin fantasy – in which an old bard makes an appearance, the sounds of the bagpipe are evoked and the unofficial Scottish national anthem is heard.