Scots violinist Harriet Mackenzie and pianist Christina Lawrie have been popular recital attractions in Britain for some years, performing separately and together, sometimes as the Sutherland Duo. They're obviously well acquainted with each other's thinking in this recital, which could easily have been heard 70 years ago at the Wyastone Estate concert hall where it has been nicely recorded by Nimbus Alliance. The program builds to an effective climax, with very restrained performances of the Grieg Violin Sonata No. 3 in C ...
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Scots violinist Harriet Mackenzie and pianist Christina Lawrie have been popular recital attractions in Britain for some years, performing separately and together, sometimes as the Sutherland Duo. They're obviously well acquainted with each other's thinking in this recital, which could easily have been heard 70 years ago at the Wyastone Estate concert hall where it has been nicely recorded by Nimbus Alliance. The program builds to an effective climax, with very restrained performances of the Grieg Violin Sonata No. 3 in C minor, Op. 45, and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un lieu cher, Op. 42, before the pair jumps full-throatedly into the Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 80, completed in 1946 and as much a product of the war years as Shostakovich's more explicit works. Prokofiev said variously of this work that listeners should think he had lost his mind, and that it should sound like wind blowing through a graveyard, and Mackenzie and Lawrie do it justice. The violent sforzandos and syncopations of the...
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