Vittorio Rieti won esteem for his orchestral music which was conducted by titans such as Toscanini and Stokowski, but the piano remained his greatest musical love. Rieti's vivid freshness can be appreciated in the selections in this volume, which ranges from the choreographed movement of his late works, including the Variazioni enarmoniche - an example of his elegance, humour and command of variational form - to the deliciously descriptive wit of his early works. Giorgio Koukl, whom The Art Music Lounge called 'one of the five or six greatest living pianists today', is once again joined by award-winning pianist, Virginia Rossetti - together they offer 'an object lesson in duo-piano balance' (Fanfare on Volume 2 in this series, GP938).

After 25 years, this Bela Bartok album is seeing the light of day! The Global Music Network originally recorded this album in 2000 but unfortunately went out of business before the recording could be released. I am delighted that First Hand Records now presents these recordings for all Bartok fans... I am convinced that that the revised version of the Bartok Viola Concerto is a more effective and stronger work than the original version of the concerto and no doubt closer to Bartok's intent. The Duos are also delightful to play and hear in these excellent arrangements of Peter Bartok. (Paul Neubauer)

For the past two centuries or so, making music has largely been a public business, with paying audiences listening to professional musicians. But for most of western history, outside of formal and religious occasions and local festivities, music-making was largely a domestic affair, with individuals playing for their own pleasure. Most of the music written for the drawing room has long been lost from sight, and it's composers forgotten, the two heard here - the Austrian Cajetan Wutky and German-English John Henry (n� Justus Heinrich) Griesbach - being cases in point. Their Haydnesque string duos, only recently rescued from obscurity in modern publications, hint at the pleasure their first patrons would have found in performing them.

Celebrated violinists Maria Milstein and Mathieu van Bellen pair Bela Bartok's 44 Duos for Two Violins with Luciano Berio's 34 Duetti per Due Violini. Bartok's miniature masterpieces have inspired and delighted countless young musicians. Although written for children, these duos are far from childlike: original harmonies, striking dissonances and lively rhythms are employed to create music with emotional depth, some being profoundly tragic, others fierce, lyrical, wild or fiery. Few works capture the vitality of folk music as vividly as these. Like Bartok, Berio composed his 'Duetti' as teaching pieces, dedicating each of the 34 duos to a friend, colleague or composer, beginning with Bela, an homage to Bartok. The pieces offer a kaleidoscope of styles, reflecting Berio's personal connections with the dedicatees.

After their very successful album with duos by Franz Alexander Possinger (Musicaphon M56996), Katja Gruttner and Christian Goosses now turn their attention to another master of the Viennese scene, Franz Anton Hoffmeister. He is one of the most productive of Viennese composers; the diversity of his oeuvre reads like a kaleidoscope of musical genres known at the time. He wrote sacred works as well as the German-language magic operas that were so popular at the time. In addition, there is talk of no fewer than 70 symphonies (44 of which are confirmed), 15 string quartets and an incredible 34 string quintets - more than the output of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven combined!

Catherine Cosbey and Dorian Komanoff Bandy present Mozart: String Duos, an album capturing the vitality, creativity, and intimacy of eighteenth-century music-making. This recording features vivid, period-instrument performances of some of Mozart's most inventive chamber compositions, as well as premieres of newly discovered historical arrangements of the Violin Sonata K. 305 and the opera La clemenza di Tito. The album begins with Mozart's two spectacular duos for violin and viola: pieces that are by turns lyrical, playful, and virtuosic. Following historical convention, Cosbey and Bandy insert extensive embellishments and cadenzas, capturing a degree of improvisatory freedom rarely heard in recordings of Mozart's string music. The album continues with the duo versions of Tito and K. 305. Arrangements such as these would have introduced many eighteenth-century consumers to Mozart's music; today, they conjure scenes of domestic music-making among family and friends. Get your CD copy of Mozart: String Duos or listen to it on your favourite streaming platform.

Mezzo-soprano Maria Laschinger (Basel, *1977) and pianist Olivia Zaugg (Bern, *1995) create their own creative-feminine space with the Blickwechsel format. Blickwechsel directs our attention, our awareness and our clairvoyance to great works by female composers who have so far received too little attention. In this album hange ich, zwischen Zeiten, the duo focuses on the compositions of the young composer Francesca Gaza, who lives in Basel, alongside songs by the English composers and women's rights activists Rebecca Clarke and Ethel Smyth, which have rarely been performed and recorded to date. The commissioned composition hange ich, zwischen Zeiten by Francesca Gaza with poems by Maria Laschinger was created in a lively exchange between the three musicians and was premiered at the Jazzcampus Basel in April 2022. Francesca Gaza, rich in broad musical influences and compositional virtuosity, has added another composition of artistic and social relevance to the duo's programme. The composer is particularly interested in exploring, combining and breaking up the roles of the piano and the voice.

Giovanni Battista Viotti composed 29 violin concertos, three sinfonie concertanti, a cello concerto, countless quartets, at least 20 trios for two violins and cello and an impressive array of violin duos, four of the latter recorded here. Described in contemporary reports as a generous and highly charismatic musician driven by idealistic zeal, he is now universally recognised as one of the greatest violinists of all time. In hindsight, it is clear that he and his vast oeuvre occupied a key historical position. He appeared at a pivotal moment between the end of the ancien regime and the start of the modern era: a period when, in social terms, music began to escape the courts and entertain the growing middle classes, laying the foundations for modern concert-going and the figure of the freelance musician. A period when various national traditions, both in terms of instruments and compositions, began to meet and influence each other with unprecedented dynamism, and when the formal rigour of Classicism gave way to the pathos of Romanticism. Viotti was at the heart of this time of dramatic change: the standard-bearer for a centuries-old Italian violin school that included Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, Pietro Locatelli, Giuseppe Tartini and Viotti's teacher Gaetano Pugnani. He took this esteemed group's technical achievements away from the Baroque and Galant style into a new era, with the arrival of Niccol� Paganini just around the corner. He was admired by Mozart, inspired the virtuosity of Paganini's concertos, was central because of his years lived in London to the evolution of British musical life, and must surely be considered the most significant figure in the entire French violin school. Later violin giants Pierre Rode, Rodolphe Kreutzer and Pierre Baillot were all strongly influenced by his work Viotti's renowned cantabile style is echoed in the violin writing of both Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms and is amply represented in the four violin duos on this album. Other information: - Recorded November 2022, Cagliari, Italy - Booklet in English contains liner notes by Carlo Goldstein - Gianmaria Melis plays a 1745 Sanctus Seraphin; Fabrizio Falasca plays a 1727 J. Guarneri - The Italian liner notes are available for download at www. Brilliantclassics. com - Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824) received his musical education from Gaetano Pugnani. He served for a short time at the Savoy Court in Turin but soon he spread his wings and travelled to Paris, where he was an instant success as a supreme violin virtuoso. He served for a time at the court of Versailles before he founded an opera house in Paris (The�tre de Monsieur). The French revolution urged him to go abroad and he settled in London, where he featured in the Hanover Square concert series and was active as a concert organizer and impresario, as well as one of the founders of the Philharmonic Society of London. - Viotti was an influential violin player and teacher. He composed violin concertos, string quartets, and other chamber music for strings. Based on the principles of the Viennese Classics it hints at more romantic feelings of times to come. - This new recording presents the duos for 2 violins, music of great charm, rich in melodies and brilliantly written for both instruments, which are fully equal to each other. - Played by Fabrizio Falasca and Gianmaria Melis, playing a 1727 Guerneri and a 1745 Sanctus Seraphin violin.

The name Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) does not immediately bring to mind such modest works as violin duos, but alongside his large output of trios, quartets and quintets for stringed instruments, Boccherini's oeuvre also features two sets of six pieces for two violins. One set was composed at the beginning of his compositional career, in 1761 - that is, before his 20th birthday - and published some years later, in 1768, in Paris by Louis-Balthazar de La Chevardiere, under the title Six duos pour deux violons, with the opus number 5. Later, the same collection is described by the composer as his Opus 3. And then there is a second, much later collection with arrangements for two violins of other compositions of his originally written for three or five stringed instruments. The latter set was published by Ignace Pleyel in Paris in 1799 - just a few years before his death - under the similar title Six duos pour deux violons, with opus number 46. Unsurprisingly, the two sets are very different in character. Boccherini's Duets Op. 3 all consist of three movements. Five of them begin with a fast movement, in a major key. Then follows a slow movement in a different key, sometimes major, sometimes minor. And, finally, there is most often a minuet, in a characteristic 3/4 time, with a tempo between slow and fast. The first duet in the set, however, follows a different model: it starts with a slow movement, a fast movement follows and finally there is a light-hearted 'Presto'. We know the year of composition of the Duets Op. 3, and we know for sure that they are works by Boccherini. Regarding the Violin Duets Op. 46, however, there are still some question marks. We know that they were published in 1799 by the Parisian publisher Ignace Pleyel, but they are missing from the catalogue compiled by Boccherini himself of his own works. That does not necessarily mean that they are not from his hand. Boccherini regularly arranged his own compositions for other instrumental combinations, and these are systematically missing from his catalogue. And these arrangements are not simply reductions of the original compositions for two violins: in many cases they are thorough re-compositions based on the original material. This last aspect in particular contributes to the assumption that the arranger was Boccherini himself: arrangers who are not the original composer usually leave the structure of the composition intact in their arrangements. In the case of Boccherini's Duets Op. 46, as it were, new compositions were created. Boccherini's violin duets are perhaps not among his best-known compositions. For the Duets Op. 3 one has to go back quite far into the past to find a recording on LP or CD. The Duets Op. 46 have never been recorded on LP or CD. It's high time, then, for a CD featuring these charming and melodious works. Other information: - Recorded October, November & December 2021, Velp, Netherlands - Booklet in English contains liner notes by Rudolf Rasch and profiles of the violinists - The recording of the Opus 3 Duets is based on the critical edition of these works in Volume 29 of the series Luigi Boccherini: Opera Omnia, published in 2007 by Ut Orpheus Edizioni (Bologna) - The Dutch liner notes are available for download at www. Brilliantclassics. com - A much-underrated composer, Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) was one of the leading composers of the late 18th century, a friend and colleague of both Haydn and Mozart, and a formidable cello virtuoso. Although less dramatic than either Haydn or Mozart, his music does have moments of explosive drama that appear all the more effective when bursting fortissimo from an otherwise calm movement. The harmonic shifts are also surprising and used to great effect. His music is sensuous, charming and highly melodious, yet may be passionate and dramatic as well. - This new recording presents the complete Duets for two violins by Boccherini. Originally conceived as study material, these works far transcend this aim, as they are challenging, skillfully written compositions, brimming with good tunes and blazing vitality. - Played by Igor Ruhadze and Daria Gorban, specialized in Baroque repertoire, having recorded the complete works by Locatelli and works by Nardini. Rugadze's recording of the Boccherini violin sonatas on Brilliant Classics received 5 stars in the French Diapason.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Paganini and Giuliani both sought their fortune in Vienna, a city that later consecrated them as great virtuosos and founders of the Italian violin and guitar school. Paganini, AKA the "devil's violinist" was an uncanny idol and heartthrob to countless music lovers and also had a masterful command of the guitar. Giuliani was the premiere guitarist of his day and also had a great understanding of the violin. His nickname, "the Paganini of the guitar" helped intensify the bond between the two and further sealed their friendship and mutual esteem. Two world-class virtuosos, Rainer Kussmaul, on a Stradivarius from 1724, together with guitarist Sonja Prunnbauer, perform a selection of their great virtuosic duos.

At a time when the world situation is changing drastically and fear, worry and negativity reign, many people feel tired and overwhelmed. With "HOPE", the release of various spiritual and gospel songs, the duo Praxedis would like to set an antipole to let hope and confidence flow into people's hearts. For the first time, they are dedicating themselves to the fascinating world of sacred, heavenly songs from America and have written their own arrangements for the duo genre of the two solo instruments harp and piano, which was popular in the 19th century. The complexity of the poetry in the 23 songs allows for different moods and interpretations. On the one hand, there are allusions to the social situation alongside a belief in the hereafter. The call to protest stands alongside the longing for freedom. The belief in a higher power stands alongside the need for a leader to save us from enslavement by the events of the world. Just as it was today when the songs were written. Living on multiple planes of existence as a citizen of the earth is becoming increasingly oppressive, with well-defined structures as a projection screen for the social cliche that society makes of us all. While songs used to be performed as a vocal construct with accompanying instruments, the interpretation with harp & piano dusts off the religious scheme of the time by omitting the singing voice and emphasizes the topicality of the works, which deal with themes of the human longing for love, light and peace, through spherical harp sounds in dialogue with sparkling piano dynamics.

As a violinist, Lloyd was drawn to stringed instruments rather than the keyboard. His wife, Nancy had a very different attitude to the piano, however. Having been brought up listening to records of Alfred Cortot, among other great pianists, she had developed a genuine passion for the instrument. She was always urging her husband to write a piano concerto, but it was not until the early 1960s that those years of persuasion paid off and Lloyd wrote Scapegoat, the first of his series of four piano concertos. Now the composer had overcome his previous aversion to the keyboard, as he put it, 'Suddenly, everything I thought of, I thought in terms of the piano'. From this dramatic change of heart emerged several works for solo piano. � Paul Conway

Together with Op. 150, the Violin Duos Op. 148 and 153 form Spohr's last cycle in this genre. It is as if Spohr, whose last published compositions included the new duos, once again wanted to show all his ability to write large-scale music with the limited instrumentation. Ursula Schoch and Tjeerd Toch are both members of the famous Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Attractive Classical-era duets for violin
and cello in world-premiere recordings
by a young Italian pair of brothers.
Despite his French name, Louis
Massonneau was a German composer,
born in Kassel in 1766 and dying at the
venerable age of 82 in MecklenburgVorpommern in 1848. His father was
chef to the Landgrave Friedrich II of
Hessen-Kassel, and Louis received his
musical training at the hands of the
court musicians in Kassel, soon
becoming a violinist in the court
orchestra. The Landgrave died when
Massonneau was 19, and the orchestra
disbanded, requiring him to seek his
fortune elsewhere. This he did in a
series of posts, as a concertmaster of
court and theatre orchestras in
Göttingen, Frankfurt, Altona, Dessau,
Hamburg and finally Mecklenburg, where he
settled for good and retired in 1837.
Composing all the while, Massonneau left
behind a fairly substantial catalogue. Almost
completely unknown apart from a trio of
oboe quartets, it includes three symphonies,
twelve symphonies and six violin concertos,
doubtless written with his own talents in
mind. These three Duos Concertante probably
date from Massonneau’s time in Altona, when
he came to know the cellist Martin Calmus.
Required to perform duets for the
entertainment of those attending ‘Musical
Academies’, Massonneau doubtless found a
dearth of such repertoire, and wrote it afresh.
Calmus himself must have been an
accomplished cellist, because both parts
demonstrate a virtuosity and experimental
spirit shared with the better-known music of
their contemporary Boccherini. Each duo is cast
in three movements, skilfully varied in form
from the others, in which lyrical expression is
tempered by a touch of irony. Haydnesque
touches of major-minor ambiguity lend
dramatic tension to the first duo, while a more
balletic spirit and Mozartian melodic charm
brings a quasi-operatic character to the second.
No.3 is the most innovative in its rapid
conversational interplay between violin and
cello and unconventional range of timbre.
Demian and Dylan Baraldi have made this
recording with the cooperation of the Edition
Massonneau, and authoritative booklet notes
from the Edition illuminate the composer’s life
and work.

This recording presents an unedited early classical repertoire by the Venetian composer and violinist Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen (1745-1760). As an outstanding pupil at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice, she was allowed to study with Giuseppe Tartini in Padua, who wrote her a long letter in which he explained his methods of violin playing and practising. This letter was copied in Padua even before it was sent and printed in Italy around 1770, followed by translations into English, German and French. Lombardini Sirmen was an extraordinary artist of the Enlightenment who achieved great popularity through her European tours as a violinist and through her compositions. Her music was widely published and reprinted by various publishers in Paris, the Netherlands, Germany and London. Her duets for two violins Opus 5 (Paris 1773) are a perfect example of the virtuosity that combines delicate and extravagant chamber music sonorities of the classical period. The performers are violinists Zefira Valova and Iskrena Yordanova, concertmasters of the two leading European baroque orchestras Il Pomo d'Oro and Divino Sospiro.