This week, Johannes Brahms is the subject of BBC Radio 3’s up-close-and-personal focus. The Brahms Experience is proceeding on the basis that if he is the love-him-or-hate-him, Marmite composer of the 19th century, he is also a taste that can be acquired. And, if conversion is the exercise, it’s live experience of his music in an acoustic like St George’s that ought to make all the difference. The passion of Daniel Hope and Sebastian Knauer’s violin and piano duo recital was unmistakable, with the fire of the lone FAE Scherzo setting the agenda in uncompromising fashion.

Frei aber Einsam (Free but Lonely) was the motto adopted by Joseph Joachim, the violin virtuoso who inspired Brahms. Hope’s own crusade on the violinist’s behalf has shed light on Joachim’s deep commitment to performing Brahms’s then quite new work across Europe. Playing lyrical Romanzes written by Joachim himself and by Clara Schumann added to the picture of a close circle of friends, as did Joachim’s arrangement of Mendelssohn songs, Auf Flügeln des Gesanges, and Hexenlied, the latter delivered with suitably bewitching force.

Central to the evening were the two Brahms sonatas, in D Minor, Op 108, and in G Major, Op 78. In both instances, Hope began in a gently understated way, disarming and immediate, but, over the course of the movements, the luscious tone he drew from his instrument gave a visceral quality to the expansive melodies. Knauer’s muscular sound is also fundamental to the partnership: together they brought atmosphere and drama to the D Minor, as well as lightness in its Scherzo, while realising their most expressive and heartfelt playing in the G Major Sonata.

• On BBC iPlayer until 14 October