Leo Weiner was one of the most important of all Hungarian pedagogues as well as being a distinguished composer. The success of his Serenade, written when he was 21, was immediate - it's light, intimate and richly melodic qualities, some of which derive from stylised Hungarian dances, are still captivating today. The Divertimento No. 3 and Variations on a Hungarian Folksong mine joyful music from a collection in Budapest's Museum of Ethnography. The Violin Concerto No. 1 is a masterly orchestration of his Violin Sonata, Op. 9, alternating between the playful and the dramatic. The performance heard here restores 115 bars that were cut from the fourth movement, making this the first complete recording.
