CD ECM Records Duo Gazzana: Poulenc / Walton / Dallapiccola / Schnittke / Silvestrov

2013

Natascia Gazzana - vioara
Raffaella Gazzana - pian

Alfred Schnittke - Suite Im Alten Stil
Francis Poulenc - Sonate Pour Violon Et Piano
Valentin Silvestrov - Hommage À J.S.B.
William Walton - Toccata For Violin And Pianoforte
Luigi Dallapiccola - Tartiniana Seconda

A clever and largely engaging collection of 20th and 21st century works that look back to earlier times played by the Duo Gazzana with wit, poise and graceful affection.
Christopher Dingle, BBC Music Magazine

Duo Gazzana bring Baroque charm to modern works for violin and piano. Sisters Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana really shine in the first recording of Valentin Silvestrov’s remarkably beautiful, fragile ‘Hommage à J.S.B.’, written in 2010 for violinist Gidon Kremer. These siblings, both born in Sora, near Rome, also lavish the full Duo Gazzana treatment on Alfred Schnittke’s ‘Suite in the Old Style’, Poulenc’s ‘Violin Sonata’, and Luigi Dallapiccola’s ‘Tatrinia Seconda’ […] Playing an exquisite Pierre Hel (Lille, 1911), Natascia brings to Schnittke and (surprisingly, but effectively) Poulenc an earthy, tawny joy – she plays the Dallapiccola fantasy with hair-trigger timing and magical, feline glee.
Laurence Vittes, Strings

The unifying theme of Italian sisters, violinist Natascia Gazzana and pianist Raffaella Gazzana's second release is a celebration of neoclassicism in modern music. The Duo Gazzana performs five 20th and 21st century compositions that, in one manner or another, draw inspiration from mostly the Baroque era. […] This stimulating and captivating program opens with Alfred Schnittke's 1971 ‘Suite In The Old Style.’ From the first, energetic prancing piano notes followed by violin's honeyed, lilting tone a lush and sensuous atmosphere is established. The Gazzanas' performance expresses every nuance in warm, pastel colors. The music glides gracefully from a whimsical dance on ‘Ballet’ to the darkly hued, heady ‘Menuett’ to the vibrant and organic ‘Fuge’ and finally closing with the subtle theatricality of ‘Pantomime’.
Duo Gazzana's sophomore session for ECM is every bit as engaging and delightful as their first and it is a superb addition to the label's uniformly excellent New Music series.
Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz

This is a recording of impressive execution based on serious musicianship. After all, both of the performers share that same ‘musical Grund’ with the five composers whose works they are performing. More importantly, however, their readings of these five compositions also show awareness of that ‘extended context’ of Weltanschauung. The attentive listener may thus appreciate each of the composers not only for his own craft but also for those factors that differentiate him from the other composers on the album. Is this not what we should expect from any satisfying listening experience?
Stephen Smoliar, Examiner.com

These works call often for considerable interpretive and technical excellence. The youthful dash of Duo Gazzana give us plenty of both in a program of unity within great diversity. What seems at first a potpourri of varying modern period masters and their works comes together to give us a sort of survey of the ways tradition has not always been overturned in modern times but sometimes also has aided and forwarded the search for new sounds within expressive and structural models that date back centuries. Duo Gazzana brings us performances of vivid musicality. One could not ask for much better than this.
Grego Applegate Edwards, Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

This new album from Duo Gazzana appears to be a labor of love on behalf of Walton’s Toccata for violin and piano. It’s an early work, dating from 1922-23, when the composer was just 20 years old. Natascia Gazzana, the violinist of the duo, has been studying the work for an academic dissertation, and has had access to source materials at the Fondazione W. Walton at his island home on Ischia. It is a fascinating piece, and well worth an airing, but it’s not one that fits easily into a recital program. But the sisters have devised a context for it, based around the Baroque genre of its title. The result is a collection of 20th/21st-century works, each with a connection, however tenuous, to the Baroque era. It’s a diverse mix, and one that stretches well beyond what we might consider ‘Neoclassical,’ even in the broadest sense.
Despite the historical allusions and references, every aspect of this recording is thoroughly modern. […] The Gazzanas perform in a way that is ideal for the ECM aesthetic: all big, round sounds and emphatic articulation, but with plenty of nuance and subtly when the music requires.
Gavin Dixon, Classical CD Reviews