»Everything in this work has to do with the friendship between Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms« - thus American violinist Gil Shaham about Brahms and his Violin Concerto, which he wrote for his friend, the violinist Joachim. »And perhaps«, Shaham goes on, »one can even say that the work is about friendship in general«.In György Ligeti’s »Lontano« (the title means »distant«) any Romantic note is only heard on the far horizon. Ligeti's piece is an extremely fine musical study of hints, memories and associations that, as the title says, waft over to us from a distant place or time. There can be no talk of sensitivity in Bartók’s pantomime ballet »Der wunderbare Mandarin«. The piece about »the ugliness and repulsiveness of the civilised world« (Bartók’s own words) is so explicit that Konrad Adenauer, at the time Mayor of Cologne, had it taken off stage after the 1926 premiere. Hardly any other music hitherto had ever sounded so caustic and brutal or aroused such controversy. read less