... four of the brightest young stars in classical music today. We are enjoying another golden era thanks to Quartet Integra. -Martin Beaver, First Violin, Tokyo String Quartet Producer's notes: Yarlung Records returned to Zipper Hall at Colburn School in April, 2025 to record the debut album for Quartet Integra toward the end of the quartet's 3-year residency in Los Angeles. They had just returned from acclaimed performances in Wigmore Hall in London. The quartet left again after our recording for summer concerts (and a little bit of family time) in Asia before moving to Paris and Hannover in the autumn. Quartet Integra begins a two year residency in Paris at the Centre Europeen de Musique de Chambre and will continue study with Oliver Wille at the Hochschule fur Musik, Theater, und Medien in Hannover. We will miss the Quartet badly in Los Angeles and hope they return soon. This extraordinary young ensemble, Kyoka Misawa and Rintaro Kikuno on violins, Itsuki Yamamoto on viola, and cellist Ye Un Park play Classical, Romantic, Contemporary and Renaissance music equally well. In fact, we explore all four eras in this recording. We begin with Beethoven's last published work, String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Opus 135, written in 1826. Beethoven wrote this piece at the height of his Romantic powers, but the quartet looks back with irony and nostalgia to his classical period. Next, Quartet Integra tackles Ligeti's 1968 ground-breaking Sonata No. 2, which they played for me at their audition and which won me over immediately. Kyoka, Rintaro, Itsuki and Ye Un find beauty and repose in this seat-belts-required 25-minute work full of extended techniques and mid-20th-Century sound world while communicating humor and transcendent energy. Kyoka said "When people hear the name Ligeti, many tend to associate it with contemporary music and assume it will be difficult to listen to. But in reality, that's not the case. Especially the String Quartet No. 2, which we're performing this time - it's wild and destructive, yet it holds a kind of breathtaking beauty. It feels almost like watching a movie." Mike Wechsberg, an audience member at our special live concert recording session commented heartily how "Ligeti is not the sort of music I normally like, but THIS was magnificent! Bravo Quartet Integra!" We ended the concert with Green Mountains, Now Black, a new piece by David S. Lefkowitz which he completed in the spring of 2025. Donna Morton commissioned David's piece for Yarlung Artists and Quartet Integra through Yarlung's sister organization Coretet. Donna and her group have steadfastly supported new chamber music including from composers Caroline Shaw, Diego Schissi (who won a Latin GRAMMY� nomination for Nene, which he wrote for Yarlung's Sibelius Piano Trio), Jamie Thierman, Eric Nathan and Benjamin Taylor among others. Donna serves on the boards of both Yarlung Artists and Coretet, and we relished the opportunity to collaborate again as Coretet celebrates it's 10th Anniversary and Yarlung celebrates it's 20th. Beethoven wrote his last major composition, String Quartet Op. 135, in 1826. This was his final statement in his groundbreaking series. Opus 135 premiered in 1828, performed by Ignaz Schuppanzigh and his famous ensemble, a year after Beethoven died. When the members of Quartet Integra suggested we record this work on their debut album instead of Schubert's "Rosamunda" Quartet written only two years earlier, I initially demurred. Who needs yet another superb performance of Beethoven's final masterpiece?" I complained. "Who needs yet another Rosamunda?" Quartet Integra 'cellist Ye Un Park responded within milliseconds. She had a point, and I'm glad we recorded the Beethoven instead, at least on Quartet Integra's first Yarlung album! The ensemble had just performed Beethoven's first string quartet in London's Wigmore Hall in London, as well as "Rosamunda, " and they were game to expand their horizons and capitalize on their "Beethoven High." They also wanted to utilize the superb acoustics at Colburn School while the quartet was still living in Los Angeles, and we knew Zipper Hall would do the Beethoven special justice. Our recording concludes with David S. Lefkowitz' Green Mountains, Now Black. David's piece offers quotations from Monteverdi's earliest extant opera Orfeo (one of my favorites in the operatic literature) and additional quotations from Monteverdi's final opera The Coronation of Poppea, including it's magical and ever-so recognizable love duet between Poppea and the emperor Nero at the end of the opera. Instead of merely transposing my favorite arias, choral passages and this famous duet for string quartet, David wrote a work that explores the very nature of what it means to be a string quartet. And he experiments with the genre, pushes boundaries, and incorporates his own despair witnessing the burning of much of Los Angeles in the spring of 2025. David and his wife Laurie could see flames and smoke not too far away from their home as he composed this work. Nero himself famously allowed a good chunk of downtown Rome to burn, exercising (and bragging about) his dubious leadership in the process. David layers Octavia's farewell to her beloved city with the giddy love duet between Octavia's husband, the emperor, and his mistress Poppea, to tell the story of David's own distress while writing the piece. Green Mountains, Now Black not only refer to Monteverdi himself (Green Mountain) but the fire which turned so many of our spring green mountains to char in Los Angeles. Despite David's gloom and worry during our fires, his iridescent string writing shows itself proudly and his many glorious and lyrical passages outnumber the darker ones. As musicians, the members of Quartet Integra communicate superbly with audiences and with each other as they explore the depths and details of these musical scores. With generous support from Sel, Nick and Martin at Colburn School, we worked with Quartet Integra on April 13-15, 2025 and ended our recording session with a live concert for invited guests from the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society on April 15th. You can enjoy videos of this concert on YouTube's YarlungChannel. Fellow recording engineer and equipment designer Arian Jansen and I used SonoruS Holographic Imaging technology in the analog domain to refine the stereo image, Yarlung's SonoruS ATR12 to record Agfa-formula 468 analog tape, the Merging Technologies HAPI to record 256fs DSD in stereo and surround sound and the SonoruS ADC to record PCM. We used our friend Ted Ancona's AKG C24 microphone previously owned by Frank Sinatra, and Yarlung Audio vacuum tube microphone amplification designed and built by Elliot Midwood. In closing, it was Donna Morton and Martin Beaver who suggested Yarlung support Quartet Integra and Martin coordinated their audition. The Quartet has been lauded as the most exciting ensemble to emerge from Japan (and Ye Un from Korea) since the famous Tokyo String Quartet formed in 1969 at Juilliard. I love a certain symmetry here: two of the non-Japanese born musicians playing as members of the Tokyo String Quartet were Yarlung Special Advisor Martin Beaver, who became principal violin in 2002, and Clive Greensmith, who joined Tokyo as cellist in 1999. Both Martin and Clive performed with the Tokyo Quartet until the ensemble gave their final concerts in 2013, and now Martin and Clive co-direct Chamber Music at Colburn School and have mentored the four members of Quartet Integra. Before their Colburn residency, Quartet Integra won a four-year fellowship with Suntory Hall's Chamber Music Academy where they were coached by Tokyo Quartet members Koichiro Harada, Kikuei Ikeda and Kazuhide Isomura. This is generational integrity and communication worthy of Kyoka, Rintaro, Itsuki and Ye Un. As we celebrate Yarlung's 20th Anniversary, we are enjoying thinking back to our original inspiration. We began working with young musicians starting international concert careers and sharing their transformative performances with the world. Yarlung Records takes it's name from the Yarlung Valley in Central Tibet, which legend holds as a meeting place between heaven and earth. It is in this valley, at the site of Yambulakhang Castle in our Yarlung Records logo, where Heaven and Earth touched in order to transform humanity. What could be a better metaphor for the transformative power of great music? I feel a deep connection between this mythical name for our record label and Quartet Integra. Hearing them play and working with these four good-natured and talented people reminded me why we created Yarlung Records in the first place. Despite my earlier comment, Quartet Integra is not a Japanese ensemble. Three of their members come from Japan and one from Korea, but they are inherently international. Quartet Integra lived in California these past years, and as indicated will spend the next several years in France and Germany. Their ties to the famous Tokyo String Quartet increase the Japanese-ness of Quartet Integra, but Tokyo String Quartet was actually founded in 1969 at Juilliard in New York City, not Japan. In planning their album cover, this image of the Toyosaki Kompira Shrine Torii Gate on the west coast of Hokkaido jumped out at us, and reflected Quartet Integra's refreshing vitality. As does the inspiration for the name of Yarlung Records, a Torii gate symbolizes a portal to the sacred in Shintoism connecting everyday reality with transcendence. -Bob Attiyeh, producer

Of Paganini's fifteen quartets with guitar only six were published during his lifetime. They represent his finest body of chamber compositions as can be heard in the three quartets for violin, viola, guitar and cello, Op. 4. Of them, No. 3 in A major is a masterpiece, with French-styled inspiration, rich lyricism and piquant invention, while the virtuosic, almost concerto-like No. 8 in A major embodies his quatuor brillant writing, with it's Rossinian resonances. No. 12 in A minor is the most 'symphonic' of the three, containing formal originality, one of the most moving of Paganini's slow movements, and his most serious-minded finale.

The first time Margarita Hohenrieder heard the Finnish pianist Antti Siirala, she was a member of the jury for the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna in May 1997. Many years later, Antti Siirala was appointed Professor for Piano at the University of Music and Theatre Munich - a happy coincidence that gave both the opportunity to make music together. The very first time they played together, we sensed a special musical relationship: a similar ideal of sound and a very deliberate way of listening to one another. Embarking with a fellow-musician on an artistic journey - such as making Mozart sound convincing on modern instruments, searching for the right tempo, rhythm, vivid phrasing, thrilling dynamics - is a highly creative process and certainly an inexhaustible source of inspiration. As an exciting contrast to their Mozart interpretations, they offer the South American sounds and rhythms of the bandoneon and the typically wistful melodies of the tango Cristian en el Cafe Tortoni Buenos Aires by Francoise Choveaux - a quite different but equally stimulating challenge. Hohenrieder also was introduced to the great bandoneon player on our recording, Sebastien Innocenti, by Francoise Choveaux. Margarita Hohenrieder is always treading unusual paths. Together with her friend, the painter Bernd Zimmer, she holds creative performances: "2 left hands," in which Bernd Zimmer creates a picture with his left hand while Margarita Hohenrieder plays works exclusively for the left hand. The well-known jazz musician Ingfried Hoffmann, Hjalmar Hegi Ragnarsson from Iceland and Francoise Choveaux wrote compositions especially for this performance. The cover of this CD and the booklet feature the painting "Ast", 2022 by Bernd Zimmer. The tango "Cristian en el Tortoni Buenos Aires" is dedicated to Margarita Hohenrieder.

Louis Lortie's programme for this eighth and final volume of Chopin spans the composer's entire career, from the teenage Rondo, Op. 1 through to his final published piece, the Cello Sonata, Op. 65. Inspired by a visit to the estate of Prince Antoni Radziwill in 1829, the Introduction and Polonaise brillante, Op. 3 was written for the prince (a keen cellist) and his pianist daughter Wanda, and was published in 1831 in Vienna, shortly before Chopin's move to Paris. Variations brillantes, Op. 12 was based on the theme 'Je vends des Scapulaires' from the (now long-forgotten) opera Ludovic. Single-handedly responsible for establishing the popularity of the mazurka, Chopin wrote almost sixty of these works in his lifetime. The two sets here date from 1842 (Op. 50) and 1844 (Op. 56) whilst the composer was at the height of his powers - and popularity in the salons of Paris. Chopin struggled with the composition of the Cello Sonata, taking two years, from 1845 to 1847, before finally premiering it at his last public concert, in Paris, on 16 February 1848. He was striving to find a 'new style' in his composition, whilst at the same time struggling under failing health and the breakdown of his long-standing relationship with the novelist George Sand. His perseverance paid off, and the sonata remains a cornerstone of the repertoire.

Farasha is the debut release of the award-winning (e.g. Anton Rubinstein International Competition) soloist and chamber musician Sindy Mohamed on Berlin Classics. The violist recalls her Egyptian, French and German roots and reflects this in a diverse selection of pieces for the viola. The album contains Sonatas for Viola and Piano by Breville and Hinemith, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's Spring Song and a transcribed version of Saint-Saens' Sonata for bassoon and piano op. 168. In addition Sindy Mohamed presents a newly comissioned work by Khaled Al Kammar "Faten Amal Harby" for oud, viola, req and piano.

Close your eyes and surrender to Hypnos, god of sleep. Zefiro Torna pours a hallucinatory elixir of dreams, solitude, secret fantasies, and soothing whispers. Baroque masters like Kapsberger, Dowland, Moulinie�, and Huygens drew inspiration from night and sleep. The enchanting voice of Lore Binon pierces the darkness, carried by Jurgen de bruyn's theorbo and lute. Lean back and drift away into... Somnia.

Les Beatles (mais pas que) en jazz. Le duo Sara Longo / Alvise Seggi nous invite dans un voyage onirique et intime qui fait voile au gre des melodies du tandem Lennon/ McCarney. Surprenant et envo�tant. Augustin BONDOUX The Beatles in jazz. Lending sails to the melodies of Lennon and McCartney, the duo of Sara Longo and Alvise Seggi takes us on an intimate, dreamlike tour. The result? A voyage of spellbinding surprises. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (FEAT. MATTEO GALLUS) - ELEANOR RIGBY (FEAT. DUDU KOUATe & MICHELE BONIVENTO) - CAN't BUY ME LOVE (FEAT. NICOLA ANGELUCCI) - TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS - ALL THAT MATTERS IS TODAY - FOR NO ONE - COME TOGETHER (FEAT. NICOLA ANGELUCCI) - LET IT BE - NORWEGIAN WOOD (FEAT. FILIPPO VIGNATO) - AND I LOVE HER - ENDLESS LAWNS - QUE JE T'AIME - ALFONSINA y EL MAR. SARA LONGO VOICE - ALVISE SEGGI DOUBLEBASS AND CELLO + SPECIAL GUESTS: MATTEO GALLUS VIOLIN - FILIPPO VIGNATO TROMBONE - MICHELE BONIVENTO HAMMOND ORGAN - DUDU KOUATe PERCUSSIONS - NICOLA ANGELUCCI DRUMS.

With my second album, "All Things Will Clear Up, Eventually", I want to encourage people to pause-to take a moment to truly feel the struggles in their lives, reflect on themselves, and engage in introspection. It's like lying on your back and gazing at the clouds, watching them appear, shift, and eventually dissolve. You begin to see shapes and patterns-new things you wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't taken the time to look a little longer. I believe that pausing and "gazing at the clouds" is essential for our mental well-being. It keeps us from fleeing into the rush of daily life and ignoring the difficult parts. Instead, it invites us to slow down and attentively observe what surfaces and moves within and around us. And I believe that pausing gives hope. These are the moments when, even in the midst of difficulty, we slowly begin to notice new possibilities and beauty-the blue sky between the clouds, the childlike images hidden in the darker ones. I believe my music can play a comforting and empowering role in this process.

Austrian guitarist Rosa Franziska Maier - laureate of numerous international competitions - releases an imaginative musical collage with GENUIN, comprising works spanning three centuries. Centered around William Walton's "Five Bagatelles" are compositions by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Johann Sebastian Bach, Giulio Regondi, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Isaac Albeniz. In Maier's richly colored and precisely articulated guitar sound, these works evoke a wide range of luminous moods, forming an imaginary museum bathed in the light of a Mediterranean summer evening.

A prevailing feature of music of the 16th century and earlier was a split between the deployment of voices and instruments: occasionally replacing each other, or used in alternation - a more concerted effort in writing dedicated instrumental music with increasing degrees of complexity and virtuosity was taking place. The penchant for writing stories about love in it's many forms continued, finding a new home in the developing operatic works as well as the ever-popular madrigal genre, as composers continued to find ways to describe the joy, grief, despair and ecstasy of the human experience of love. Cupid's Ground Bass is a celebration of these developing musical aesthetics of early 17th century Italy, focusing particularly on the composers' language of love in all it's forms.

Emanuel Gruber and Arnon Erez's classic account of Beethoven's music for cello and piano has been remastered for this 2-CD release. The Jerusalem Post called Gruber "one of our great artists" citing "his extraordinary capacity for projecting the deepest meaning of the music". Gruber was awarded the Pablo Casals prize by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Arnon Erez has been the head of the Chamber Music Department at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University for nearly two decades. With Emanuel Gruber, Erez has recorded the complete cello and piano Sonatas by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.

Yannis Constans, prodigieux guitariste occitan, qui s'est dej� produit avec les plus grands (Stochelo Rosenberg, Dorado et Tchavolo Schmitt, Angelo Debarre,...), s'associe � Samson Schmitt, virtuose inconteste, ic�ne du jazz manouche. Un album unique, o� tradition et modernite se rencontrent, tisse de complicites et de sonorites chamarrees. Incontournable pour tous les amoureux de guitares aux semelles de vent. Augustin BONDOUX/Patrick FReMEAUX Yannis Constans, a prodigious Occitan guitarist who has already appeared with the greatest (Stochelo Rosenberg, Dorado and Tchavolo Schmitt, Angelo Debarre,...) plays here with Samson Schmitt, undeniably a virtuoso musician and an icon in gypsy jazz. This album is unique, with an encounter between the tradition and the modern that is filled with entente and richly coloured sounds. An unavoidable record made for those who love guitars that tread as lightly as the wind. Augustin BONDOUX/Patrick FReMEAUX LE CHAT ET LA SOURIS (SAMSON SCHMITT) - EZPERANZA (YANNIS CONSTANS) - CASSE-NOISETTE (SAMSON SCHMITT) - ANA�S (YANNIS CONSTANS) - MERCI DJANGO (SAMSON SCHMITT) - LA BOITE � MUSIQUE (SAMSON SCHMITT) - POR TUS OJOS (YANNIS CONSTANS) - BIBODe (DORADO SCHMITT) - HORA ADRIANO (YANNIS CONSTANS) - POUR MON PeRE (DORADO SCHMITT) - CHORO PRA ELEA (YANNIS CONSTANS) - RHAPSODIE � 6 CORES (SAMSON SCHMITT) - BONUS : PAPA ET LE TANGO (SAMSON SCHMITT). YANNIS CONSTANS ET SAMSON SCHMITT : GUITARE - CAMILLE WOLFROM : CONTREBASSE INVITeS : DORADO SCHMITT : VIOLON - STEFI SCHMITT ET STENLI SCHMITT : CHANT - NICOLA GIAMMARINARO : CLARINETTE - ROBERTO GERVASI : ACCORDeON DIRECTION COLLECTION : AUGUSTIN BONDOUX

The Hamburg-born Ferdinand Thieriot (1838-1919) not only shared a teacher - Eduard Marxsen - with Brahms; both composers, who remained friends in later years, use a very similar musical language, one which is richly melodic and effortlessly contrapuntal. The musicologist Wilhelm Altmann wrote that 'Thieriot's chamber music is without exception noble and pure. He writes with perfect command of form and expression' - as the works on this fourth Toccata Classics volume prove, in their exquisite balance of depth and beauty, of Brahmsian richness and Schubertian spontaneity.

Rosa Passos is considered one of the most important and loved Brazilian singers. Many music fans view her as the queen of modern bossa nova and samba, and she's equally loved in South America, Japan, USA and Europe. Whether she's playing with Kenny Barron or Yo Yo Ma she easily sells out Carnegie Hall in New York. She also enjoys touring with her quartet at jazz festivals and jazz clubs around Europe. Rosa Passos is part of the golden generation of Brazilian musicians that includes Joao Bosco, Joyce Moreno, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Maria Bethania, Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins and many other great artists. Rosa Passos is especially loved for her elegance and soft touch. Her musicality is an inspiration to singers all over the world. Her music speaks to everyone, you don't need to know about jazz or music to understand and enjoy - there is something universal to her vocal and approach that instantly makes the listener go along on the journey Rosa sets out for. It's always beautiful and if you close your eyes you can feel the Brasilian soul and see the beaches for your inner eyes. On July 7th, 2001 Rosa Passos played two sets at the famous Copenhagen Jazzhouse, one of the best jazz clubs in Europe for more than 25 years. The concerts took place as part of a bigger summer tour of Europe, with Rosa Passos playing all the important jazz festivals. In 2001 she was still unknown to the audience in Copenhagen, but Steen Rasmussen, a Danish pianist who was there, remembers: "Her playing was flawless and sophisticated - and it swung like crazy. It was already the best music I'd ever heard. Then she began to sing - and I was almost in a trance. That voice, that phrasing, that swing, that empathy, that way she accompanied herself - and that low volume. I could tell everyone present felt the same. Rosa Passos had changed all our lives forever" The experience speaks to the impact Rosa Passos has on people when they have the honor of experiencing her talent first-hand. She's intimate and powerful at the same time, and the tunes she plays, a mixture of her own compositions and Bossa Nova-classics, support her means of expression in the best way possible. This recording from Jazzhouse presents her and her band at her best. The sound is crisp, and the presence allows for the pure expression to shine through, and makes you wish that you had been there to experience this very special night in Copenhagen. "Imagine you are rocking a baby to sleep. For me, that's Bossa Nova" - Rosa Passos

Roffredo Caetani (1871-1961) prince of Bassiano, last duke of Sermoneta, composer and patron of the arts, developed a marked musical talent from an early age. A decisive factor in this respect was certainly the influence of his father, a close friend of Franz Liszt, who in turn would be an exceptional godfather and, later, teacher to Roffredo. Caetani completed his Sonata for Violin and Piano in 1898, and the work was first performed by the great Turinese violinist Teresina Tua and pianist Francesco Bajardi. The Sonata's three movements are decidedly broad and there is a particular evocation of the Baroque in the Adagio and Finale, as in Ferruccio Busoni's Second Sonata for violin and piano in E minor, Op.36. The first movement begins with a brief, slow and expressive introduction, almost enigmatic, somewhat reminiscent of the great Sonatas of the classical period (such as Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata), and then it gives way, in an almost impetuous manner, to the Allegro, full of themes following one on another, urged on by a pressing rhythm. In the Adagio, counterpoint is much more than a technique, it becomes an expressive tool. Written in ABA ternary form, the central part of which has a faster tempo (Pi� andante), the second movement consists of a combination of elegiac chants entrusted to the violin with chromatic counterpoint to the piano. The Finale of the Sonata is a three-voice fugue whose theme is developed from the very first notes of the movement and whose character is incisive and brilliant. Guido Alberto Fano (1875-1961) was an Italian composer, conductor and pianist of Jewish origin, a survivor of the Holocaust. He began his musical studies with Vittorio Orefice, later undertaking piano studies under Cesare Pollini. In 1894, he was invited by Giuseppe Martucci to be his piano and composition student at Bologna, where Fano graduated in 1897. Fano's Fantasia Sonata for violin and piano in D minor, composed in 1893, is one of the Paduan composer's first chamber works. It was later revised by the composer in 1941, during the dark period of his escape from Nazi persecution. The first movement - Contemplativo e sognante - is characterised by a plaintive thematic motif, emphasised by repeated crescendos and diminuendos in the middle of each bar, as if evoking a Jewish folk song. In the second movement, Andante sostenuto, baroque writing of an intimate and spiritual character is evoked. The piano is entrusted with an elaborate counterpoint with written flourishes that support and incorporate the violin line. The third movement, Misterioso e moderatamente mosso (added in the version of 1941) is nothing but a perpetual motion entrusted to the violin taking it's cue from the piano part of the Allegro molto (third movement version of 1893). The Finale, Allegro molto (added in the version of 1941), is a natural continuation, but it transfers the virtuosic character to the piano. The violin is then free to develop the cantabile and passionate theme set out in the first movement, reversing it's first three notes. - Recorded May 2024, Polla (Salerno), Italy - Bilingual booklet in English and Italian contains liner notes by Ludovica Del Bagno and a profile of the duo - Mauro Tortorelli plays a Giovanni Guidanti violin (Bologna, 1730) - The violin sonatas of Roffredo Caetani and Guido Alberto Fano, though lesser-known in the broader canon of chamber music, reflect the rich cultural and musical milieu of early 20th-century Italy. Both composers were deeply rooted in the Romantic tradition while also responding to the stylistic shifts of their time, and their violin sonatas reveal a blend of lyricism, structural clarity, and expressive depth. - Roffredo Caetani (1871-1961), a nobleman, composer, and pupil of Franz Liszt, brought a refined sensibility to his music. His Violin Sonata, composed in the early 20th century, is characterized by lush textures and a lively dialogue between violin and piano, offering glimpses of impressionistic color amid the Brahmsian density. - Guido Alberto Fano (1875-1961), a pianist, conductor, and close associate of Giuseppe Martucci, likewise embraced a Romantic idiom deeply influenced by the Germanic tradition. His Violin Sonata is notable for it's dramatic scope and contrapuntal rigor. Fano weaves complex motivic development with a keen sense of melodic invention, balancing virtuosity and lyricism. The piano part often assumes an orchestral role, supporting and sometimes challenging the violin in a vibrant interplay. - Played by the Gran Duo Italiano: Mauro Tortorelli and Angela Meluso, whose highly important and valuable discography for Brilliant Classics includes works by Saint-Saens, Santorsola, D'Ambrosio, Santoliquido, Sevcik, Auer, Milhaud, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and others.