Violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Joyce Yang make an international pair: he is an Italian of German background, trained largely in the U.S., and she is Korean-American. Maybe that accounts for their versatility: the four pieces here all fall into the mainstream tradition (three would be called Romantic, and the Tre Pezzi, Op. 14e, of Györy Kurtág, bears the marks of neoclassicism), but are as diverse as could be imagined. The unusual item here is the three-movement Tango Song and Dance of André Previn, who is more ...
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Violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Joyce Yang make an international pair: he is an Italian of German background, trained largely in the U.S., and she is Korean-American. Maybe that accounts for their versatility: the four pieces here all fall into the mainstream tradition (three would be called Romantic, and the Tre Pezzi, Op. 14e, of Györy Kurtág, bears the marks of neoclassicism), but are as diverse as could be imagined. The unusual item here is the three-movement Tango Song and Dance of André Previn, who is more generally grouped with popular composers. Yet the work, not much performed, makes a broad, pleasing opening, an ideal foil for the dense, almost abruptly contrast-filled language of late Schumann in the Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor, Op. 105. The Kurtág, although more modern, is more delicate, and the mood is in turn transformed by the lush Sonata in A major of César Franck. There's an intensity to the whole -- sample the Franck sonata's famous finale, where the duo sacrifices...
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