With flushed face, raised shoulders, and groans of delight Brahms belabored the keyboard while accompanying me and was happy that ‘such a thing existed in this world. Brahms was talking about one of the seminal violin works of the 19th century, and it wasn’t Beethoven’s magisterial Violin Concerto, nor was it Mendelssohn’s marvellous light and airy essay in the same genre. Nor was it the great Kreutzer Sonata or the concertos of Saint-Saëns. Brahms groaned with delight over the great 22nd violin concerto of Giovanni Battista Viotti, one of the true masters of the violin and the master who opened the door to a flood of great music little remembered today. Rode, Baillot, Kreutzer, Dancla, Alard, Spohr, Beriot, David, Mazas, Godard, Vieuxtemps and many more composers solidified the technique of modern violin-playing at the same time creating a body of music that is truly a buried treasure—now brought to the light of day and made part of our recorded legacy by Naxos. While the concerto form led the way, these composers wrote in a variety of forms: paraphrases of opera tunes, tone-poem descriptions of exotic travel , airs varie based on popular tunes, chamber music, and especially (many were pedagogues) etudes, caprices, and numerous “violin schools.” This series on 19th century violin music provides a window onto this vast repertoire, mostly written by practitioners of the instrument, and all of it delightful listening.