On her debut album for Berlin Classics, Sarah Christian performs no less a work than Tchaikovsky’s warhorse, his Violin Concerto, ably supported by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Jéremie Rhorer. For full measure, she plays Tchaikovsky’s Sextet Souvenir de Florence. This is repertoire radiant with positive energy and feelings of happiness, which are not always to be found in Tchaikovsky’s music. Sarah Christian is able to do more here than show off her brilliant technical skills; her love of chamber music can be clearly heard and clearly felt.

Music that revives you is an urgent necessity at times such as these. Many people have been hit hard by the Corona pandemic, music-makers perhaps hardest of all. Tchaikovsky composed both his Violin Concerto and his “Recollection of Florence” when he was at a spa, recovering from depression and nervous breakdown. Vigorous and virtuosic, but also tuneful and romantic, each work reflects this sense of recovery, the surge of new energy in convalescence. Sarah Christian set great store by recording these two works in the difficult year of 2020. She was concerned that “despite all the checks and challenges that we musicians – and others too – have faced and are still facing, it should still be possible to give back something tangible, audible, something positive.”