Duo Gazzana: Five Pieces

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really it's only in the Janacek that the performers are at all stretched in terms of their impressive technique, and perhaps they could have given more. Apart from the Silvestrov, there are plenty... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 19th Sep 2011
Catalogue No: 4764428
Label: ECM
Series: New Series
Length: 46 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Takemitsu: Distance de Fée

Work length6:22

$0.85

$1.15

Natascia Gazzana (violin), Raffaella Gazzana (piano)
Duo Gazzana
Recorded: 2011-03-03
Recording Venue: Auditorio Radio Svizzera RTSI, Lugano

Hindemith: Sonata In E For Violin And Piano

Work length9:23

$1.70

$2.30

Natascia Gazzana (violin), Raffaella Gazzana (piano)
Duo Gazzana
Recorded: 2011-03-03
Recording Venue: Auditorio Radio Svizzera RTSI, Lugano

I. Ruhig bewegt

Track length3:32

$0.85

$1.15

II. Langsam - Sehr lebhaft

Track length5:51

$0.85

$1.15

Janáček: Violin Sonata

Work length16:00

$3.40

$4.60

Natascia Gazzana (violin), Raffaella Gazzana (piano)
Duo Gazzana
Recorded: 2011-03-03
Recording Venue: Auditorio Radio Svizzera RTSI, Lugano

I. Con moto

Track length5:05

$0.85

$1.15

II. Ballada (Con moto)

Track length4:21

$0.85

$1.15

III. Allegretto

Track length2:25

$0.85

$1.15

IV. Adagio

Track length4:09

$0.85

$1.15

Sylvestrov: Five Pieces for violin and piano

Work length15:06

$4.25

$5.75

Natascia Gazzana (violin), Raffaella Gazzana (piano)
Duo Gazzana
Recorded: 2011-03-03
Recording Venue: Auditorio Radio Svizzera RTSI, Lugano

I. Elegia (Andante Larghetto)

Track length2:59

$0.85

$1.15

II. Serenata (Moderato)

Track length3:08

$0.85

$1.15

III. Intermezzo (Moderato)

Track length2:38

$0.85

$1.15

IV. Barcarole (Andantino)

Track length3:13

$0.85

$1.15

V. Nocturne (Larghetto)

Track length3:08

$0.85

$1.15

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Highly attractive recording debut album of gifted Italian sisters Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana in a programme of 20th and 21st century pieces for violin and piano. This recital of Takemitsu, Hindemith, Janáček and Silvestrov is distinguished by its sensitivity and thoughtfulness and by the refined and insightful playing of the award-winning Duo Gazzana.

The album is titled after the “Five Pieces for Violin and Piano” by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov which conclude the disc. These works, written in 2004, receive their first international release here in a context combining the familiar and the far-flung, which finds creative affinities between the music of four very different composers.

Hindemith’s Sonata in E travels from pastoral beginnings to harmonic complexity, the Janáček Violin Sonata balances lyrical flow and expressive gestures, while Silvestrov - as ever - artfully addresses the ghosts and shadows of history in his gently-undulating music of memories. Toru Takemitsu’s ‘Distance de fée’ (from 1951) was amongst the first pieces written by the Japanese composer at a time when he was still influenced by Messiaen and Debussy. Duo Gazzana has a special relationship to Japan and the Far East, and has toured there. (Five Pieces is issued simultaneously with “Landscapes” (4763938), another recording with music by a major Japanese composer, Toshio Hosokawa.)

Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana were born in Sora, near Rome. Their first ‘official’ concerts as Duo Gazzana were in the mid 1990s, but they have been playing together from the beginning of their musical education. Their parallel musical backgrounds – after attending Italian conservatoires, both studied in Lausanne and have won major scholarships and awards, at home and abroad – and love of chamber music has enabled the musicians to develop their shared sensed of harmony.

Reviews

December 2011

really it's only in the Janacek that the performers are at all stretched in terms of their impressive technique, and perhaps they could have given more. Apart from the Silvestrov, there are plenty of good competing versions of these works, but perhaps the couplings in this particular programme will make the disc attractive to purchasers.

December 2011

Graduates in visual arts and literature respectively, Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana convey no mean musical chemistry in a recital that has evidently been conceived as an overall unity...A recital that makes absolute sense on its own terms.

19th November 2011

The opening work on this disc is one of those things you can’t believe you’ve never heard before. And then you press repeat, and listen to it, grinning, again and again...Welcome to Distance de fée...Without gushing too much, this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard all year.

Duo Gazzana: Five Pieces

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