David Nadien (1926-2014) was one of the major American violinists of the 20th century. Beginning his career as a brilliant prodigy who performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 14, he was one of the star pupils of the famed Ivan Galamian. Unanimously regarded by his peers as one of the outstanding violinists of his generation, Nadien rarely performed concerts. Due to his innately introverted and diffident nature and distaste for self-aggrandisement, he preferred to keep a low-key profile and ended up establishing himself as the foremost free-lance commercial violinist in the New York area. Nevertheless, in 1966, he was appointed by Leonard Bernstein to be concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic.

The recorded legacy of Nadien is sparse. Apart from an LP of the Franck and Debussy sonatas (reissued on Biddulph 850122), there are no commercial recordings of major classical repertoire. This live recital with Jacques Abram on CD offers an opportunity to hear Nadien in Classical sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven, as well as the romantic Franck Sonata. The violinist’s glowing tone and shimmering vibrato with luscious position changes is heard to wonderful effect in these stirring readings.

The pianist Jacques Abram (1915-98) was a student of David Saperton at the Curtis Institute and Ernest Hutcheson at the Juilliard School, and made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall performing the MacDowell Piano Concerto. Abram also championed a number of British works, premiering the Benjamin Britten’s Piano Concerto and making the work’s first recording, as well as Arthur Benjamin’s 1949 Piano Concerto ‘quasi una Fantasia’.

Recorded live on 14 January 1972 at the University of South Florida