Concert, for violin, piano & string quartet in D major, Op. 21
The duo of violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Alexander Melnikov have achieved fresh results in familiar repertory, often using historically appropriate instruments. Here the combination of Faust's gut-strung 1710 Stradivarius and Melnikov's 1885 Erard piano yields impressive transparency. The Erard has a gentle, rounded sound, recorded to maximum effect by Harmonia Mundi's engineers in Berlin's Teldex Studio. The sense of ensemble is unusual enough in the Sonate pour piano et violon, the Sonata for piano and violin, of C ...
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The duo of violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Alexander Melnikov have achieved fresh results in familiar repertory, often using historically appropriate instruments. Here the combination of Faust's gut-strung 1710 Stradivarius and Melnikov's 1885 Erard piano yields impressive transparency. The Erard has a gentle, rounded sound, recorded to maximum effect by Harmonia Mundi's engineers in Berlin's Teldex Studio. The sense of ensemble is unusual enough in the Sonate pour piano et violon, the Sonata for piano and violin, of César Franck, whose title indicates clearly what the composer was after: an intricate balance of the two instruments. The performance of Chausson's rarer Concert for piano, violin, and string quartet in D minor, Op. 21, is even stronger. The textures of this work are unusually complex, with the string quartet functioning variously as a kind of chamber orchestra and in pieces as accompaniment for the violin and piano. The ensemble work by Faust, Melnikov, and the Salagon Quartet is...
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