Ravel, Franck, Ligeti, Messiaen

Albumbeschreibung

Around the immense landmark which is Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano, the Duo Gazzana has chosen to present less well-known works – so little-known in fact, that Ligeti's Duo here is a discographic world first! The album opens with Ravel's "posthumous" sonata, written in 1897, but only published forty years after his death. A contemporary piece to the Pavane for a Dead Princess, it possesses a grace reminiscent of Debussy, or Fauré. There is no virtuosity here, but rather an intimacy that seems to provide a bridge between the younger Ravel and the Ravel of later maturity. After Franck's Sonata, which needs no introduction – but which is very much worth a listen in the hands of the gifted Natascia and Raffaella, disciples of Bruno Canino, Ruggiero Ricci, Yehudi Menuhin and Pierre Amoyal – there is a rare pearl from Ligeti, the Duo of 1946 in which Bartók's influence remains in the foreground, with its Magyar and Romany elements. The album closes with another youthful work, Messiaen's Theme and Variations, written in 1932 as a wedding gift to his first wife. The final, contemplative variation seems to open up its voice in the final notes of Quartet for the End of Time. In it, we hear the harmonies and the ranges that the composer loved, but his little birds haven't hatched yet. © SM/Qobuz