Duo Balance Stockfish

The violin and cello duo cannot be considered as a musical rarity; yet it is also far from one of the most popular instrumental combinations in Western classical music. It is a challenging ensemble for both those composing for it and those venturing in the performance of its repertoire. It is a duo which invites counterpoint: the deep nature of both instruments and their vocation is to melodic singing, to the sustained lines which translate the human being’s aspiration to vocality into instrumental music. In consequence, to undertake a composition for violin and cello duo is also to implicitly accept the challenge of polyphony, and to affirm one’s mastery of its most intricate secrets.

Songs without words in the velvety smoothness of a splendid brass instrument: this is what we are offered here. Fabian Bloch (euphonium) and Muriel Zeiter (piano) take us on a journey through three centuries of masterpieces to which they lend a new voice.

From his time as a student at the Leningrad (today’s St Petersburg) Conservatory, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) developed a strong connection with cinema, earning a living in the 1920s as a pianist for silent films. He would go on to write scores throughout his career for dozens of sound films, among them Aleksandr Faintsimmer’s The Gadfly (1955), beloved in the Soviet Union for its themes of revolution and atheism. The writing, with its highly diversified contours, combines in an extraordinary way severe accents and romantic outbursts of a purely Russian style with atmospheres of a Mediterranean character. Vadim Borisovsky’s viola and piano arrangement is based on the suite for orchestra prepared from Shostakovich’s score by Lev Atovmyan.

From his time as a student at the Leningrad (today’s St Petersburg) Conservatory, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) developed a strong connection with cinema, earning a living in the 1920s as a pianist for silent films.

Antonín Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, op. 46 (B 78), made the composer known beyond the confines of his native Bohemia and laid the cornerstone for his international breakthrough.

This album explores the development of chamber music for violin in the 18th century, a time of extraordinary innovation and instrumental virtuosity, with special attention to Italian composers such as Giovanni Battista Viotti, Bartolomeo Campagnoli and Francesco Geminiani, whose never-before-recorded duet can be heard on this album.

Following their superb Dussek album, Duo Pleyel’s Richard Egarr and Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya explore the seminal role a musical father figure can play in shaping another composer.

The traditional songs of the Christmas holiday are offered here by the Salzedo Harp Duo, their third release on Azica Records. The Salzedo Harp Duo, named after groundbreaking composer Carlos Salzedo, is Jody Guinn and Nancy Lendrim. Jody Guinn has been the principal harpist of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Opera since 1984. She has been substituting or playing extra harp with the Cleveland Orchestra since 1986. Guinn shares her love of the instrument with several private students and is on the harp faculty of colleges across the region. Jody Guinn has been the principal harpist of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Opera since 1984. She played for the Cleveland Ballet and the Ohio Chamber Orchestra for 16 years while both organizations were in existence in Cleveland. She has been substituting or playing extra harp with the Cleveland Orchestra since 1986 including multiple tours to Europe, New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center.

Once again, the duo Gazzana juxtaposes the romantic repertoire with contemporary musical works on a new album.