(Paul Hindemith - complicated relationships)

This week's batch of 78's is the Violin Concerto written in 1939 by the German composer Paul Hindemith. It was slated to be premiered in Germany that year, but fate and the Nazi's had other plans and it was finally performed in Holland in 1940, with Hindemith having migrated to Switzerland in 1938 and eventually living and working in New York by 1940.

This recording, made in Paris for French HMV in 1948, features the violinist Henri Merckel with the Lamoureux Orchestra led by Roger Desormiere.

Don't quote me on this, but I think this is the first commercial recording of the concerto.