This is the musical telling of a three-way friendship-romance. We know that the young, dashingly handsome Brahms, exploded into the life of the Schumann couple. "The arrival of Brahms, a genius!" notes Robert in his intimate diary, with extraordinary intuition. What follows is recounted by Shuichi Okada on violin and Clément Lefebvre on piano: two young musicians from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, which co-produced this release, in which they tie together the links binding the three historical figures together. The First Sonata in A Minor, Op. 105 by Schumann starts us off, followed by two extracts from the famous Sonata F-A-E, written by Schumann, Brahms and Dietrich, the latter sadly commonly overlooked by violinists. Caught in a vice between the two men who love her, here is Clara with her Three Romances, Op. 22 which precedes the melancholy Sonata No.1, Op. 78, "Regensonate" by Brahms. The music collected here tells better than words could of how the three composers answer each other and give birth to a common language, of sparks of the heart, of an effusion of feelings and of things left unsaid. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Two is better than one. What’s better than a pair of hands for playing the piano? Two pairs of hands! Considered 'intimate', the four-handed piano genre has long been confined to inner circles; played in front of friends but rarely in concert. There are of course some famous exceptions (almost always sibling pairings), such as the Labèque sisters, the Walachowski sisters or, among the younger generation, Lucas and Arthur Jussen. It is therefore all the more refreshing to see two ‘independent’ pianists, David Salmon and Manuel Vieillard, making their mark on the world of chamber music by performing the piano duo repertoire on the biggest stages.Graduates of the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris, Manuel Vieillard and David Salmon are concert performers of the highest level. Between meeting during their studies at the CRR in Paris and the beginning of their international career, a musical symbiosis was born, with the desire to form a "real" duo - not just to meet for concerts. The wish certainly came true: after almost ten years of collaboration, the duo won first prize in the prestigious ARD International Music Competition (Munich). They have now delivered their first album, released on Mirare: Schumann - Brahms - Dvořák, a fine selection of romantic pieces on which the colours of the piano shine through two-fold.Although the composers chosen are among the most famous of the Romantic era, this album offers up innovative and little-known pieces that have rarely been performed or recorded to date. From the very first of these, Schumann's Images d'Orient (Bilder aus Osten, op. 66), you can clearly feel the complicity and complementarity attitudes of the two instrumentalists. The piece carries us away with its changing moods, taking us through all emotions. The romantic and melancholic atmosphere is also wonderfully captured on Brahms' Variations on a Theme of Schumann, Op. 23, in which the composer pays tribute to his colleague and mentor. The album ends with Dvořák's piano cycle From the Bohemian Forest (Ze Šumavy), op. 68, a masterpiece of the four-hand piano repertoire masterfully performed by Salmon and Vieillard, whose unique artistic symbiosis shines through once again. Without doubt, two is better than one! A beautiful Qobuzissime to start off the new year! © Lena Germann/Qobuz

This is the musical telling of a three-way friendship-romance. We know that the young, dashingly handsome Brahms, exploded into the life of the Schumann couple. "The arrival of Brahms, a genius!" notes Robert in his intimate diary, with extraordinary intuition. What follows is recounted by Shuichi Okada on violin and Clément Lefebvre on piano: two young musicians from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, which co-produced this release, in which they tie together the links binding the three historical figures together. The First Sonata in A Minor, Op. 105 by Schumann starts us off, followed by two extracts from the famous Sonata F-A-E, written by Schumann, Brahms and Dietrich, the latter sadly commonly overlooked by violinists. Caught in a vice between the two men who love her, here is Clara with her Three Romances, Op. 22 which precedes the melancholy Sonata No.1, Op. 78, "Regensonate" by Brahms. The music collected here tells better than words could of how the three composers answer each other and give birth to a common language, of sparks of the heart, of an effusion of feelings and of things left unsaid. © François Hudry/Qobuz

With Indians Indians, Robert Mirabal trades off songs and spoken word monologues to shape a story about the modern Native American communities around him. The songs are mainly based around Mirabal's flute playing and husky vocals over a bed of acoustic guitar, cello, bass, and percussion, and while there is some influence of the '90s Native American new age movement, Mirabal's explorations mostly sit alongside that of the contemporary folk world. The most intriguing aspect of this recording, however, is the evenly dispersed spoken word sections. Mirabal tends to experiment on these tracks with tumbling drum programming, soundscapes, and samples underneath his stories of the modern Native American lifestyle. An eloquent storyteller, Mirabal touches -- passionately and without contempt -- on a variety of issues within the Native American community, like its involvement in the national political struggles of the '70s, and self-imposed segregation among grade-school children of different ethnic descent. Parallels could easily be drawn between acts of Native American history traditionally passed down through oral history and Mirabal as a modern-day historian, who also documents through stories of acute observation.© Gregory McIntosh /TiVo