Early, Classical and Beyond

There’s another outstanding set of the J.S. Bach Sonatas & Partitas for Violin, this time by the New York violinist Johnny Gandelsman, a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, on his own In a Circle Records label (ICR010 johnnygandelsman.com). No stranger to crossover styles, Gandelsman cites Irish fiddle bowing and Béla Fleck banjo left-hand chord shapes as influences on his approach to the problems posed by these astonishing works, and there’s certainly a freedom, vitality and a strong sense of character that makes the performances immensely satisfying.

Gandelsman uses gut strings on a modern violin and a transitional bow – YouTube footage of his concert performances shows him holding it a few inches above the frog – and his bowing is effortlessly smooth and controlled, dancing through the faster movements and surmounting the multiple-stop issues with clarity and ease. He’s never afraid to take the time to let phrases breathe, but never loses a fine sense of melodic line or rhythmic pulse. Nothing ever sounds heavy or forced.

It’s simply brilliant playing, on a par with the very best in an intensely competitive field.

The 2-CD set Mozart: Violin Sonatas Vol.5 is the final issue in the complete series of Mozart’s sonatas for keyboard and violin – including the 16 juvenile sonatas – by the outstanding duo of violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien (Hyperion CDA68175 hyperion-records.co.uk). This disc has the Sonatas in G major K11 and A Major K12, the two Sonatas in E-flat Major K302 and K380, the Sonata in A Major K526 and the Variations in G Major K359. An interesting addition is the Sonata in B-flat Major K570, Mozart’s penultimate piano sonata that appeared in print some five months after Mozart’s death with an added anonymous violin accompaniment.

This is the first volume from this set that I’ve heard, and the previous volumes garnered rave reviews. It’s easy to hear why: this duo always works so well together, and can find depth and expression in even the simplest movements. Judging by this beautifully recorded final issue it’s a set that will bear comparison to any.

There’s another truly lovely set of the Brahms Three Violin Sonatas, this time with the outstanding English violinist Tasmin Little and her regular partner Piers Lane (Chandos CHAN 10977 chandos.net). There’s a beautifully measured opening to the Sonata in G Major Op.78 – always a good indicator of what’s to come – with full, warm playing and a finely judged pulse and tempo. There’s lyricism, expression and passion when called for in all three sonatas.

The rich tone of Little’s 1757 Guadagnini violin is matched by Lane’s Steinway Model D concert grand in as satisfying a set of these works as you could wish to hear.

Four Strings Around the World is a quite stunning solo CD from the Romanian-born violinist Irina Muresanu that features diverse musical styles from across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and both North and South America (Sono Luminus DSL-92221 sonoluminus.com). Muresanu introduced her Four Strings Around the World project in 2013 after her difficulty in learning Mark O’Connor’s Cricket Dance led her to explore worldwide non-traditional violin styles.

Enescu’s Airs in Romanian Folk Style opens the disc, with works by Ireland’s Dave Flynn, Iran’s Reza Vali, India’s Shirish Korde and China’s Bright Sheng surrounding Paganini’s 24th Caprice, Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo Op.6 and a strongly melodic reading of the Bach D Minor Chaconne. Then it’s Piazzolla’s Tango Étude No.3 and a work by Chickasaw Nation composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate before the short Cricket Dance that apparently gave Muresanu so much trouble.

Not that you would know it – complete with foot stomps, it’s a simply dazzling end to one of the best solo CDs I’ve heard.

There are another two sets of the unaccompanied Bach cello works: Bach Cello Suites with Dariusz Skoraczewski, the principal cellist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Analog Arts dskora.com); and Johann Sebastian Bach The Six Cello Suites Revisited with the Danish cellist Toke Møldrup (Bridge 9503A/B bridgerecords.com).

Møldrup plays a David Tecchler cello (Rome 1697) and, for Suite VI and the Suite I Revisited a mid-18th-century cello rebuilt as a five-string by Birger Kulmbach in 2016. Skoraczewski’s gorgeous tone is from a 1702 Carlo Giuseppe Testore cello on loan from Marin Alsop.

Recording ambience is fine for both, with a touch more resonance in the Skoraczewski. Individual movement and suite timings vary – the bigger differences probably due to the handling of repeats – but despite Møldrup being faster in 23 of the 36 tracks it’s Skoraczewski who has the smoothest line and who really dances through the suites. Møldrup, incidentally, produces a continuous percussive sound from his left-hand fingers hitting the fingerboard.

The Møldrup comes with copious booklet notes on the approach to the interpretation (turning the score “into three separate layers – melody, chordal structure and bass line”) and an additional track in Viggo Mangor’s Suite I Revisited, a reworking of the G-major suite transposed to D major for two violins, cello and chamber organ “to give an insight into our working method.”

The Skoraczewski comes with virtually no notes at all, with all aspects of the CD production – recording, engineering, editing, graphics, photography – credited to him. In this particular case, less is definitely more.

The Spanish academic-musician Guadalupe López Íñiguez is the Baroque cello soloist in Domenico Gabrielli & Alessandro Scarlatti Complete Cello Works on an excellent Alba Super Audio CD (ABCD 412 alba.fi). Baroque cellist Markku Luolajan-Mikkola, Baroque guitarist and archlutenist Olli Hyyrynen and harpsichordist Lauri Honkavirta provide varied continuo support where appropriate.

The Gabrielli works are the Sonatas for cello and basso continuo in G major (two versions) and A major, the seven Ricercari for solo cello and the Canon for two cellos. Scarlatti is represented by his three Sonatas for cello and basso continuo in D minor, C minor and C major respectively.

In her excellent booklet notes Iñiquez discusses her approach to the early music genre as well as the issues of sources, pitch, temperament, articulation, vibrato and scordatura, the latter employed in the Gabrielli-major sonata (first version) and the Ricercari numbers 4, 6 and 7.

The American duo of cellist Marcy Rosen and pianist Lydia Artymiw is featured on Felix Mendelssohn Complete Works for Cello & Piano (Bridge 9501 bridgerecords.com). Rosen plays with a smooth singing tone and a fine sense of line in the Variations concertantes Op.17, the two Sonatas – No.1 in B-flat Major Op.45 and No.2 in D Major Op.58 – the Lied ohne Worte Op.109 and the brief musical fragment Assai tranquillo. Artymiw’s contribution is outstanding, full of nuance and sensitivity and with a fine dynamic range. The Molto allegro e vivace finale of Sonata No.2 is a standout on an excellent CD.

Germany’s Schumann Quartett – the three Schumann brothers Erik, Ken and Mark along with violist Liisa Randalu – presents works by Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and the German composer Aribert Reimann on Intermezzo (Berlin Classics 0301058BC berlin-classics-music.com).

Schumann’s String Quartet No.1 in A Minor Op.41/1 has long been a part of their repertoire, and their deep understanding of the work is evident in a striking performance.

Aribert Reimann is a direct descendant of Franz Richarz, the doctor who treated Robert Schumann in the asylum near the end of his life. His Adagio in Memory of Robert Schumann from 2006 is based on two wordless chorales that Schumann left unfinished. The soprano Anna Lucia Richter is the excellent soloist in Reimann’s effective setting of Schumann’s Six Songs Op.107, written during the first severe onset of his mental illness.

Schumann dedicated his three Op.41 quartets to Mendelssohn, and the latter’s String Quartet in E-flat Major Op.12 completes a thoughtful and intelligent recital. Again, there’s an excellent feel for the music, with lightness, agility, clarity and – especially in the Molto allegro e vivace final movement – what Randalu describes as the opportunity for “wild joy in playing.”

Two of the three late chamber masterpieces by a French composer who received virtually no public acclaim during his lifetime are presented on César Franck String Quartet and Piano Quintet by the Quatuor Danel and pianist Paavali Jumppanen (CPO 555 088-2 naxosdirect.com/labels/cpo).

The String Quartet in D Minor, premiered in 1890 just months before Franck’s death, was the first work of his to win unbridled public acclaim. It’s a huge and difficult work, which may account for its not being heard more often; this impassioned performance, though, makes you wish it were.

The Piano Quintet in F Minor made little impact at its 1879 premiere but quickly won over Franck’s colleagues, inspiring similar works by an array of French composers. Again, it’s a passionate and sensuous piece that elicits exemplary playing from Jumppanen and the ensemble.

Axioms – Moments of Truth is the new CD from the Houston-based Axiom Quartet (Navona Records NV6151 navonarecords.com). Although there are short works ranging from Monteverdi through Bach, Ives, Billie Holiday and Fleetwood Mac to Bob Dylan, the driving creative force here is the composer Karl Blench, who not only made all the arrangements but also provided the short pieces that act as transitions between the named works; he also wrote the final title track.

Played without a break, it’s a fascinating program from an ensemble known for its mixing of traditional repertoire with transcriptions of music from a wide variety of popular genres. They’re clearly in their element here.

Listen to 'Axioms – Moments of Truth' Now in the Listening Room

Duos for violin and double bass features violinist Elina Vähälä and bassist Niek de Groot in a diverse and fascinating selection of contemporary works by Krzysztof Penderecki, the late Isang Yun, Jaakko Kuusisto, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Alfred Huber, György Kurtág and Wolfgang Rihm (audite 97.732 audite.de).

Composition dates range from 1989 to 2012, with the differing approaches to the possibilities presented by these two apparently incompatible instruments creating a remarkable program that Vähälä and de Groot handle with complete technical and musical assurance.

The Fifth Row – An Acoustic Tour of Historic Theaters (Ravello Records RR7988 ravellorecords.com) is a highly original concept album from the American classical guitarist Stuart Weber that acknowledges that a player’s awareness of their physical surroundings is crucially important. “Our ears,” says Weber, “have to be in the house. The Fifth Row, to be precise.”

Weber decided to indulge his fascination with old theatres and their unique acoustic qualities by recording the 11 tracks in 11 historic theatres in Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and Idaho. It’s difficult to discern any real acoustic differences between the tracks, but no matter – it’s a highly entertaining, if brief (35 minutes) program of arrangements of short pieces by Dvořák, Bartók, Weiss, Telemann and others interspersed with five of Weber’s own excellent compositions.

Another relatively brief but high quality guitar CD features Michael Poll playing the Lute Suites Nos.1 and 4 on 7-string Bach (Orchid Classics ORC100082 orchidclassics.com). Recorded in the legendary Studio 3 at London’s Abbey Road Studios, Poll plays with a warm, rich and full tone in his own arrangements of the Lute Suite No.1 in E Minor BWV996 and the Lute Suite No.4 in E Major BWV1006a, the latter Bach’s own adaptation of the musical material in his Partita III for solo violin.

Poll plays a seven-string guitar, the additional string making it possible to play these works in their original register. 

Aldo Ciccolini, who died in 2015 at age 89, is remembered for his specialization with classical repertoire as well as modern French music, especially Satie. His collaborations with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2009 and 2011 have yielded a recording of these live concerts: Mozart Piano Concerto No.20, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2; London Philharmonic Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin (LPO 0102 lpo.org.uk/recordings).

The recorded performances are wonderful documents, slowed a bit by advanced age, but utterly perfect in every other way. Ciccolini, even in his 80s, had the lightness and clarity of touch to navigate Mozart with supreme elegance. Yet the power needed to battle through the Rachmaninoff Concerto No.2 seems undiminished. Ciccolini plays with a discernible affection for the music, without hasty completion of ideas. Every slightly lingering moment seems so appropriate.

The concerts must have been remarkable events, and judging from the audience response, being there was an unforgettable privilege.

Wolf Harden continues his productive career on the Naxos label with his latest CD Busoni - Piano Music - Vol.10, Piano Transcriptions of works by Bach, Brahms, Cramer, Liszt and Mozart (Naxos 8.573806 naxos.com). Busoni’s transcriptions have a distinctive sound. They are big and often dense, but always reflect his abiding respect for the form and structure to which his subject composers adhered. Harden is obviously at home in this genre but equally comfortable with exploiting Busoni’s style for its Italianate swells of emotion.

The most intriguing tracks on this recording are the Brahms Chorale Preludes for Organ Op.122 in which Brahms’ Romanticism is augmented by Busoni’s often heroic keyboard style. Harden plays this with such perfect balance, preserving the sacred nature of the chorales while allowing Busoni to restate them in his own unique terms. Brahms sometimes buried the chorale melody rather deeply in his harmonic mix but Harden never loses his grip of it, keeping the line prominent and easy to follow.

Lars Vogt appears as pianist and conductor on his latest release Beethoven Piano Concertos 2 & 4; Royal Northern Sinfonia (Ondine ODE1311-2 ondine.net). Directing from the keyboard, Vogt leads the orchestra in a highly energized performance of these familiar works. The RNS is a mid-size ensemble well suited to the classical repertoire, and despite the size of their home concert hall, they maintain a satisfying sense of intimacy in their playing.

Both concertos are a delight to hear but the Concerto No.4 really shows the composer as a mature tunesmith. The players sound as if they take some special delight in driving forward the powerful rhythms of this concerto. Vogt is brilliant at the keyboard. His playing is articulate, fluent and sensitive. Rapid ornaments roll from his fingers with astonishing ease. It’s an exciting and bracing recording.

Norman Kieger’s latest release Brahms Piano Concerto No.2, Piano Sonata No.1; London Symphony Orchestra; Philip Ryan Mann (Decca DD41142/481 4871 decca.com) meets the high expectations raised by its cover. From the opening French horn solo to the concerto’s final chords, orchestra and soloist are perfectly balanced. The fabled third movement cello solos are as beautifully played as you’d ever hear, and the ensemble playing throughout is flawless. The disc also includes the Sonata No.1 in C, Op.1. Even though the two works were recorded in different locations, the relative audio presence of the piano and the space around it are almost identical. This consistency reflects the label’s high production values and contributes to the exceptional quality of this recording.

Goran Filipec is a powerhouse pianist, and it’s just as well because no less would do for the repertoire on his latest recording Paganini at the Piano – Arrangements and Variations by Hambourg, Busoni, Zadora, Friedman, Papandopulo (Grand Piano GP 769 grandpianorecords.com). Paganini’s music and virtuosity, especially his Caprices for solo violin, had considerable impact on his piano playing and composing contemporaries. Filipec selects a fine sampling of these inspired keyboard works beginning with a huge set of variations by Hambourg on perhaps the best-known Caprice, No.24. Friedman’s Studies on the same thematic material are equally long, challenging and impressive for their creative originality. Along with the disc’s other tracks you’ll be left breathlessly awestruck by Filipec’s playing.

Welsh pianist Llŷr Williams last year completed a Beethoven concert cycle at Wigmore Hall which was recorded and recently released as Beethoven Unbound (Signum Classics SIGCD527P signumrecords.com). The 12-CD box set represents an enormous three-year recording project that documented the complete piano Sonatas, Bagatelles and Beethoven’s several sets of Variations. In all, there are nearly 14 hours of music to satisfy the most demanding Beethovenian consumer.

Williams is supremely capable in this repertoire and possesses a formidable keyboard technique. His artistic vision for this music is to lift it above the struggle we almost naturally assume underlies all the composer’s writing, and set it free in a much larger space. Here is where Williams decides that joviality, tenderness, passion and genius all have a place in Beethoven’s universe. While Beethoven Unbound is a welcome addition to the world of complete sets, it’s a significant re-visioning of music we have perhaps known too well.

Anne-Marie McDermott’s latest recording is Haydn Sonatas, Vol.2 (Bridge 9497 BridgeRecords.com) and contains four Sonatas, 37, 39, 46 and 48, Hoboken XVI, from the composer’s mid- to late-career years. The immediately arresting thing about McDermott’s playing is her speed and clarity. Her fast tempos are as quick as most performers can manage, yet entirely without loss of articulation. Her phrasings are impeccable and artfully crafted to lift in all the most effective places. She imbues a sense of whimsy and playfulness into Haydn’s music, replacing the too-often heard mechanical approaches that many performers take for the composer. She assumes that the music is already all there and she just needs to find it and reveal it. Even more interesting is the way McDermott brings a kind of retro-romance to Haydn. Imagine Chopin or Debussy playing these, blending the perfection of classicism with the passions of their subsequent eras. It’s a beautiful and fresh approach by a supremely gifted pianist who needs to be more widely heard.

Orion Weiss adds a new release to his current handful of recordings with Presentiment (orionwiess.com). Weiss’s program captures the foreboding felt in the years before the First World War. This anxiety is only subtly present in the Granados Goyescas, but Weiss finds it in the music’s shadows and teases it out into the open. He’s a seductive performer; a charmer of sorts. Only in the final two movements does he fully explore what Granados has only been hinting in his earlier pages. Weiss plays Goyescas with an easy lightness that makes many of its phrases pure dance. The best I’ve heard in a long time.

Progressively, more of the early-20th century’s angst reveals itself in Janáček’s In the Mists. Weiss uses the deep melancholy of this work’s plaintive melodies to lead up to the disc’s final piece, Scriabin’s Sonata No.9 Op.68 “Black Mass.” Here there’s no longer any doubt about what the world is about to experience. Weiss portrays it all with a mature and measured confidence.

Monica Chew is a gifted player with an affinity for deeply sensitive expression. Her debut recording Tender & Strange – A Piano Recital: Bartok, Janáček, Takemitsu, Messiaen, Scriabin (Chronicalicious CHR 170001 monicachew.com) conveys this in a powerful way and her program title aptly reflects her recital’s intentions. Each of her chosen pieces has some passages where this inner search is evident, but she makes the deepest impression with the Messiaen Le baiser de l’enfant-Jesus. Here she speaks the composer’s language fluently. Similarly, both of Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketches capture a contemplative other-worldliness. No.2 in particular, In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen, holds the listener in suspense through its numerous sustained chordal clusters that fade over extended fermatas, each followed by total silence before the next notes sound. Chew plays these final pages of the piece with impeccable timing and musicality.

Michael Korstick has several dozen recordings to his credit and his latest is Dmitri Kabalevsky – Complete Piano Sonatas (CPO 555 163-2 naxosdirect.com/labels/cpo). Kabalevsky’s piano music suffers the fate of being overshadowed by that of other Russian contemporaries like Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff, but the artistic commitment of performers like Korstick and labels like CPO make this music both available and worth hearing. Kabalevsky’s three sonatas are his only efforts for solo piano in a large form. The first dates from 1927 and the other two from 1945 and 1946 respectively. Kabalevsky wrote the Sonata No.2 Op.45 for Emil Gilels, who premiered it in the Soviet Union in 1945. Vladimir Horowitz performed the American premiere at Carnegie Hall in 1947. It’s the most engaging of the three sonatas, with some devilishly difficult passages in the final movement. On the whole, it’s a beautifully written piece and offers so much that repeated plays are a necessity. Korstick does a fabulous job performing it.

Organist and composer Zvonimir Nagy has a new recording of his recent works. Angelus – Music for Organ (Ravello Records RR7987 ravellorecords.com) begins with the title track Angelus, and establishes the profoundly meditative nature of this disc’s program. The recording was made on the four-division pipe organ in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where Nagy is associate professor of music. It’s a modestly sized instrument and well-balanced for the acoustic space the chapel offers.

There is a marked minimalism in Nagy’s writing. He uses the instrument’s broad dynamic range and colourful stop list to create some very beautiful moments. Even while he concentrates on form, writing movements that are inversions and retrogrades of each other, he is always focused on creating the meditative atmosphere he wants for works like Litanies of the Soul and Preludes for a Prayer.

Alexander Melnikov is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory. His new recording Claude Debussy – Préludes du 2e Livre, La Mer (Debussy version for four-hand piano) (Harmonia Mundi HMM 902302 harmoniamundi.com) includes pianist Olga Pashchenko in the transcription of La Mer.

Debussy accepted his publisher’s request to write the transcription, and created a work that blends an astonishing amount of orchestral colour into the capabilities of a single keyboard with two players. Melnikov and Pashchenko are wonderful partners in this recording. They play with a deeply shared artistic sensibility and deliver both the power and rich palette of the orchestral score.

Melnikov plays the Préludes Book II leaving the impression that he understands exactly what Debussy intended to convey. His technique is impressively clean and crisp, and his interpretations are completely convincing. He plays with great attention to colour and emotion, and takes advantage of Debussy’s frequent harmonic densities and other devices to make this a completely captivating disc. Melnikov favours authenticity in performance and has chosen to play an Érard in this recording. 

Vivaldi – Concertos pour flûte à bec
Vincent Lauzer; Arion Baroque Orchestra; Alexander Weimann
ATMA ACD2 2760 (atmaclassique.com)

Vivaldi’s recorder concertos have long been respected – and enjoyed. Enter soloist Vincent Lauzer, who comes with a whole slate of achievement awards. Lauzer tackles his first soprano concerto with relish, meeting the challenge of a demandingly fast Allegro and Allegro molto; in between these two he charms us with a soothing Largo, testing the full gamut of the soprano recorder.

Turn now to the five movements of the treble recorder concerto from the La Notte suite. Once again, a Largo breathes intensity into Vivaldi’s music. Lauzer conducts us through a somewhat sinister composition; as La Notte implies there is indeed something of the night about it.

Of course, this pattern of serious Largos should not be taken as typical, as there is a lightness and pleasure in the Largo movement of Lauzer’s choice of another soprano concerto. This time, too, an Allegro draws on all the soloist’s expertise – it is breathless for both performer and listener.

Lauzer absolutely sails through this repertoire, although we should not forget the strings and basso continuo. Listen indeed to the Largo e cantabile of Lauzer’s final choice for treble recorder. It is as though with anything Vivaldi composed, no matter how complex Vivaldi intended it to be, Lauzer performs it with a passion. He enjoys total mastery of his recorders. And we are the highly fortunate listeners.

Kuhlau – Grandes Sonates Opus 71 & 83
Mika Putterman; Erin Helyard
Analekta AN 2 9530 (analekta.com)

Born in Hamburg and later based in Copenhagen, Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832) was encountered by my generation mainly as a piano sonatina composer. In his time, however, he succeeded best with music for the flute. Montreal-based specialist Mika Putterman here provides an exemplary demonstration of the Romantic flute’s beauties, in collaboration with Australian fortepianist, conductor and musicologist Erin Helyard. In Kuhlau’s Grand Sonata for Fortepiano and Flute Obbligato, Op. 71 in E Minor (1825) and the similarly named Op. 83, No. 1 in G Major (1827) the duo also practises tempo modification, i.e. speeding up or slowing down beyond what is specified in the score. It takes time to get used to this, as is usual with unfamiliar historically informed performance practices.

I particularly enjoyed the E-minor sonata for its instrumental interplay, florid display and melodic attractiveness. Putterman plays with pure, non-vibrato tone that can be sweet or sad, and is very affecting in the slow movement’s melody. Helyard is a confident fortepianist, though sometimes his solid chords are over-prominent. Both are excellent technically and their ensemble is tight. The G-major sonata’s middle movement is a set of variations, where each player impresses with the ability to play fast passages with convincing expressive touches. Of the outer movements I preferred the first, and must mention Helyard’s fluent double-thirds here and elsewhere. Along with specialists, I think this disc would appeal to those open to new challenges for performers and listeners alike.

Beethoven – Works For Flute 1
Kazunori Seo; Patrick Gallois; Mitsuo Kodama; Asuka Sezaki; Koichi Komine
Naxos 8.573569 (naxos.com)

Japanese flutist Kazunori Seo takes centre stage in this recording of Beethoven’s wind-focused chamber music. First up on the program are three duos for flute and bassoon, transcribed by Seo to substitute a flute for the clarinet originally called for on the upper part. It’s not certain that these duos are really Beethoven’s, and they don’t display the complexity of the other two pieces which follow them here – but their transparent simplicity is charming. Seo and bassoonist Mitsuo Kodama play with grace and attentiveness here, but are perhaps a little too cautious in their interpretation. That said, Seo’s sound on his wooden modern flute is lovely, his use of vibrato as a decorative choice is exemplary, and the instrumental blend is top-notch.

Much less reserve can be heard in the Duo in G Major for two flutes, played by Seo and Patrick Gallois with strongly shaped phrasing, dramatic shifts of dynamic range, and expressive use of articulation and ornament. The conversation’s saltier and the results are definitely fun!

The interpretive thoughtfulness continues with Serenade in D Major for flute, violin and viola, Op.25, which receives a nuanced and intrepid performance in its original scoring. This is a wonderful piece of chamber music and it’s good to hear it played with such polish and spirited engagement.