A gem, and a rare one too, for this week's Friday Historical. My friend and colleague Brendan Carroll, whose archive would turn Aladdin's genie greener than ever, has just uploaded this heavenly account of the slow movement of the Brahms Violin C

Here is one of those invaluable touchstones that always help to calm everybody down and restore perspective: one for the Dead Violinists Society, namely Joszef Joachim (1831-1907), Brahms's closest friend, playing his mate's Hungarian Dance No.1