Title: 20th-century music for violin and piano
Product review: Graf Mourja and his duo partner Elena Rozanova offer technically assured renditions in this interesting collection of twentieth-century music for violin and piano. Ravel's Tzigane, of course, has a huge number of competing versions on disc, and Mourja's reading comes off as a bit too restrained and Gallically elegant rather than abandoned, at least for this listener's taste. Similarly, the Blues movement of Ravel's Sonata has been projected with more lowdown humor than is the case here. The prizes of this CD are the Schnittke Sonata, a large-scale, closely knit and intensely emotional piece, reconciling twelve-tone and tonal textures with moving results; and the Szymanowski Nocturne and Tarantelle, which pairs perfumed exoticism with bacchanalian revelry in an technically taxing display. This latter work in particular is tossed off with superb aplomb by these two performers, making for an exciting conclusion to this recital.
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