Album: Duo Gazzana, Five Pieces: Takemitsu, Hindemith, Janácek, Silvestrov (ECM New Series)

The Gazzana sisters Natascia (violin) and Raffaella (piano) here tackle four pieces in which the composers seem estranged from the sources of their inspiration in some way.

Takemitsu, for instance, was just 20, living apart from the European influences discernible in his exquisite Romantic miniature "Distance de fée"; and Hindemith's troubled position in relation to the socio-political ructions of the 1930s is all too evident in the wariness and restless vacillations of his "Sonata in E". A corresponding uncertainty afflicts Janácek's "Sonata", its moods wavering between pastoral ease and darker intimations of change as he gazed towards a Russia in turmoil.

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