Odradek Records

A sumptuous album of French and Belgian music for violin and piano, performed with unique intimacy and poetry by long-term partners Franco Mezzena and Elena Ballario. Cesar Franck's Violin Sonata in A Major is his most celebrated work, a perfect example of cyclical form resulting in music of ardour and spirit, the two protagonists engaged in a lively and exhilarating dialogue that culminates in a thrilling finale. Franck had promised a violin sonata to Cosima Wagner, but it was Eugene Ysaye's request for a wedding piece that finally galvanised him to compose the work. Debussy's Violin Sonata was his last complete composition, written in the shadow of the First World War. The work reflects some of the internal tussle the composer was experiencing during the conflict, but with his characteristic fluidity and nuanced harmonies. Debussy said of the work: "Through a quite humane contradiction, it is full of a joyous tumult". Florent Schmitt was a French composer who absorbed Germanic influences to create a rich and passionate vocabulary. His music has seen a revival in recent years, and his Four Pieces for Violin and Piano encompass a lyrical Lied, brooding Nocturne, sunny Serenade and remarkably dramatic Barcarolle. Italian musicians Franco Mezzena (violin) and Elena Ballario (piano) have been collaborating for some time, resulting in a performance style of real kinship, warmth and understanding. With Odradek they have also made a superb recording of Schubert's Piano Trios as part of the Mezzena/Patria/Ballario Trio. © Odradek Records

Kevin Duggan is an outstanding organist who performs a meticulously selected and beautiful array of Danish works on the magnificent Flentrop organ of Dunblane Cathedral. "Hymne til Ærø" takes its title from a work of the same name composed by Duggan after his time living on the Danish island of Ærø. The piece is one of two world-premiere recordings of Duggan’s music featured on this release. © Odradek Records

Earl Wild was a prodigiously talented American pianist who became as famous for his transcriptions as for his dazzling performances, representing a vital link with 19th-century exponents of the pianist-composer tradition such as Liszt, Rachmaninov and Busoni. For Vittorio Forte, “Earl Wild was the perfect example of a marvellous blend between academism and modernity in an ever-changing world”, a combination audible in the array of works chosen for this recital. We hear Wild’s transcriptions of two elegant Baroque pieces: Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith and the Adagio from Marcello’s Oboe Concerto, contrasted with the Russian passion of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Then to 20th-century America with Wild’s breathtaking Seven Virtuoso Etudes on Songs by George Gershwin and his Improvisation in the Form of a Theme and Three Variations on "Someone To Watch Over Me". © Odradek Records

Marc Monnet’s extraordinary musical life has been auspicious from the start: he studied with Kagel and Stockhausen in Cologne, gained attention at the Darmstadt summer school and was awarded a residency at the Villa Medici. The first book of En pièces (2007) is dedicated to François-Frédéric Guy, who premiered the entire collection at the Strasbourg Musica Festival in 2012. A long artistic companionship and a real friendship bind these two artists. François-Frédéric Guy has praised Monnet’s dazzling ability “to push piano techniques to their extreme”, as well as his “freedom of tone”, and his “Schumannian” inspiration in music of “whimsical, even fantastic, and unclassifiable character”. © Odradek Records